Cascading Socio-environmental Risks In Northern Patagonia: A Locally Anchored Assessment From Family Farming Systems

Abstract

Global socio-environmental change poses growing challenges for family farming in Patagonia, requiring approaches that integrate Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) into adaptation research. This study examines how family farmers participating in the Nahuel Huapi Family Farmers’ Market (Northern Patagonia, Argentina) understand and respond to change. Building on extensive ethnobiological fieldwork, a participatory workshop was conducted to assess locally perceived Components of Change (CoC), their impacts on productive systems, adaptive practices, and associated knowledge transmission pathways. We also developed a Locally-Anchored Impact Index (LAII), which integrates the perceived severity of each CoC with its degree of interconnectivity within the socioecological system. Results show that farmers interpret socio-environmental change through a systemic perspective, identifying water scarcity as the central organizing concern, with surface and groundwater flow and drought emerging as the most influential CoC. The LAII revealed a greater overall impact of climatic and ecological factors than socio-economic ones, and higher index values were associated with a broader diversity of adaptive practices. Climatic CoC mobilized the widest repertoire of responses, whereas ecological and socio-economic CoC elicited distinct adaptive strategies and knowledge transmission pathways. These findings highlight family farmers as active agents whose responses are grounded in local learning, experimentation, and knowledge exchange. The LAII provides a context-sensitive framework for identifying locally relevant adaptation priorities and a transferable methodological approach for participatory assessment of socio-environmental change.