Session Information

• Mountain social-ecological systems
• Local knowledge
• Community resilience

Outline

Mountain regions globally provide crucial ecosystem services to their inhabitants and to the surrounding lowland populations. However, multiple anthropogenic drivers, such as land-use change, climate change, overexploitation, and population growth severely affect the social-ecological resilience of these systems. In addition, mountain regions are prone to multiple and interconnected risks which are exacerbated by the above-mentioned drivers and by specific socio-demographic settings. There is an increasing recognition of the urgency to address these complex and intertwined challenges in a holistic way. Inter- and transdisciplinary approaches are needed to investigate human-nature interactions and to identify measures and activities that foster the overall resilience of mountain socio-ecological systems. Top-down disaster risk management rarely integrates local knowledge or cultural heritage adequately and there is a lack of communication between specialists representing scientific knowledge and actors providing local insights. At the same time, there is growing scientific evidence supporting the need to more strongly consider the human dimension of risk management in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction processes.
This session presents on-going efforts and opportunities to integrate diverse knowledge systems in disaster risk reduction processes for the improvement of highland and lowland social-ecological resilience.