Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2023
Höfundar / Authors: Ragnhildur Hemmert Sigurðardóttir
Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: Sjálfstætt starfandi fræðimaður
Kynnir / Presenter: Ragnhildur Hemmert Sigurðardóttir
The study of climate resiliency of populations and natural ecosystems is one of the most important topics of climate change research and policy. In Iceland, farm management diaries of subsistence and pre-mechanical farmers, from ca 1700-1950 showed how they responded to the natural environment. A common thread in these diaries is information on the weather conditions and the land-use activities, observations and the farmers responses to the natural environment on a day-by-day basis. This project studies how climate variability and the distribution of natural resources and ecosystem services affect how a community displays resilience and adaptability to a changing environment?; Further questions include: to what extent is the natural world perceived and reflected in the written documents, what kind of traditional ecological knowledge is to be found and how do past land-use legacies affect the current cultural and natural landscape?; How connections and correlations between culture, society and ecology develop over the course of time and; How climatic and environmental factors, in terms of temperature changes and precipitation changes, sea-ice variability and geological events such as volcanic eruptions and avalanches, become drivers in social-ecological changes; Finding the day-by-day events which lead to short- or long-term social disruption and or environmental degradation and the link between climate and the survival of the human population and their livestock