CCAFS baseline study at household level in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Diagnostic phase of the study: "Contribution of tree diversity to livelihoods for climate change adaptation and mitigation".
Abstract
The combinations of trees, crops and animals in agroforestry systems are supposed to play a positive role in adapting to climate change at the farm, household and landscape levels. The project "Contribution of tree diversity to livelihoods for climate change adaptation and mitigation" seeks to describe and quantify the contribution of trees to the climate change adaptation capacity of rural families in three sites in Nicaragua and one site in Costa Rica. Results are presented from the initial phase of this study which focused on developing a baseline that will contribute to: (1) describing the main characteristics of households, the diversity of livelihoods at the household level and the main production systems at the study sites; (2) understanding what have been the main changes that families have made in the last ten years regarding crops grown and crop, land and water management on their farms; and (3) determining which have been the main determinants of the observed changes and which of these factors are directly related to climate variability.