Adaptation dominates climate responses in social-ecological systems in northern Sweden

As climate change intensifies, resilience in social-ecological systems becomes increasingly important for sustaining the provision of nature’s contributions to people. Decades of research identify three dimensions of social-ecological resilience, that is, the capacity to cope, adapt, and transform under changing conditions. Here, we examine how response diversity supports these three dimensions by investigating the resilience of nature’s contributions to people in the Vindelälven-Juhttátahkka Biosphere Reserve in northern Sweden. By drawing on semi-structured interviews we show that actors in the region focus on climate change adaptation but are limited in their capacity to cope with shocks or transform away from undesirable trajectories. We find that, when measured only as the number of different responses, high response diversity does not reflect the resilience needed to navigate increasingly intense and frequent disturbances. Instead, assessing how response diversity supports all three resilience dimensions captures its role more meaningfully and deepens our understanding of how to build resilience under climate change.