Agroforestry Systems and Climate Change Adaptation
Summary
Agroforestry systems—land-use practices that deliberately integrate trees, shrubs or woody perennials with crops and/or livestock—are gaining prominence as both a climate change adaptation and mitigation strategy. By combining species with complementary functions, these systems buffer agricultural landscapes against extreme events, regulate microclimates, improve soil structure and water retention, and support biodiversity. In drought-prone or erratic-rainfall regions, tree canopies reduce evapotranspiration and shade crops, while deep roots access groundwater and cycle nutrients to surface soils. Diversified outputs (fruit, fodder, timber, non-timber forest products) offer livelihood resilience by spreading economic risk and creating off-farm income opportunities. Agroforestry also sequesters carbon in biomass and soils, contributing to greenhouse-gas removal and enhancing local climate regulation. Globally, research has documented application in temperate windbreaks, tropical homegardens, silvopastoral systems and riparian buffers. Yet adoption remains uneven owing to tenure insecurity, limited technical capacity, policy misalignment and trade-offs between short-term yields and long-term ecosystem benefits. Emerging studies underscore the need to co-design systems with local communities, align incentives with ecosystem services and fill knowledge gaps in water governance, multifunctionality and institutional frameworks. Integrated planning at landscape scale can maximise synergies between agricultural productivity, ecosystem health and climate resilience.
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Agroforestry Systems and Climate Change Adaptation publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in agroforestry systems and climate change adaptation across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Agroforestry: Land-use systems integrating trees or shrubs with crops and/or livestock to deliver multiple ecological and economic benefits.
Climate change adaptation: Adjustments in practices, processes or structures to moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities arising from climate change.
Ecosystem services: Benefits provided by ecosystems to humans, including provisioning (food, timber), regulating (climate, water), supporting (nutrient cycling) and cultural services.
Carbon sequestration: Long-term capture and storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide in vegetation and soils.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): A methodology for evaluating environmental impacts associated with all stages of a product’s life, from resource extraction to disposal.
References
- Drought threatens agroforestry landscapes and dryland livelihoods in a North African hotspot of environmental change. Landscape and Urban Planning (2024).
- How does Life Cycle Assessment capture the environmental impacts of agroforestry? A systematic review. The Science of The Total Environment (2023).
- Agroforestry contributions to smallholder farmer food security in Indonesia. Agroforestry Systems (2021).
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