The concepts of ‘resilience’, ‘adaptation’ and ‘transformation’ have captured the attention of the global policy community, and are being translated into aspirational goals that guide policy development. Understanding resilience, adaptation and transformation of agro-ecosystems is critical to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals related to food security, land degradation neutrality and climate change adaptatio. As we strive towards sustainable development, efforts are focussing on defining safe operating spaces where human societies can develop and prosper.

The concept of resilience is increasingly recognised as relevant in devising policy and informing on-ground interventions to progress sustainability goal.Recent initiatives under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) seek to identify the biophysical and social thresholds, and develop responses that avert unwanted change. It is clear that the degradation of ecosystems is threatening the productivity of the land and the livelihoods of people that depend on it. The magnitude of these challenges continues to grow with the increasing effects of climate change. The only path forward is improving land users’ resilience to drought, desertification, and other disruptions to food production that affect their well-being.This report introduces an iterative participatory approach to the assessment of resilience, identifying socio-ecological variables and their interactions across scales. A feature of the assessment is the identification of thresholds for key controlling variables used to assess vulnerability, and warn of impending decline in the capacity of the system.