MONITORING

The management of agroforestry systems is inherently a dynamic process, as agroforestry systems are complex bio-socio-economic systems. Climate change adds a further factor of uncertainty to the biological base as well as to the human labour invested. As in the case of managed forests, the application of management measures already in place or new to existing systems (traditional or not), as well as the establishment of new ones, must be constantly monitored and evaluated, and their results used to continuously adapt and correct management (Bolte et al. 2009). As Bodin et al. (2007) point out, adaptation of forest management, due to multiple elements of uncertainty, has to some extent the character of ‘learning by doing’.

Monitoring through suitable indicators regularly assesses both the vulnerability of the agroforestry system and the design and implementation of climate change adaptation measures. It is recommended that monitoring should focus on the following elements (adapted from the LIFE+AdaptFor working group, 2014): changes in climate parameters, the most significant impacts of climate change, particularly on the most vulnerable elements of the agroforestry system, the effectiveness/success of management measures taken to adapt the agroforestry system to climate change, and any social and economic impacts of the implementation of adaptation measures.