Understanding social-ecological vulnerability in goat pastoral systems through a participatory multi-stakeholder spatial assessment

Dryland pastoral systems are increasingly affected by the interrelation between socioenvironmental variability and change with land degradation. In Mexico, goat pastoralism (CaprinoCultura) represents a key social-ecological system (SES) that sustains rural livelihoods under highly constrained conditions. This study examined how social-ecological drivers operating across household, ejido and regional scales shape the vulnerability of CaprinoCultura in the Altiplano Potosino. It also questioned how different stakeholder groups perceive and prioritize these drivers. Thus, we developed a novel Participatory Vulnerability Assessment Framework (PVAF) that combined SES characterization, stakeholder-based criteria selection, and weighting and spatial multi-criteria analysis. The assessment integrated biophysical, socio-economic and institutional dimensions co-defined by pastoralists, academics, government representatives and civil society organizations. Results revealed marked spatial heterogeneity in the convergence of vulnerability-associated conditions in the integrated assessment, with northern and eastern municipalities showing greater concentrations of conditions like ecosystem degradation, high grazing pressure, migration, limited access to resources, and governance and institutional constraints. In contrast, southwestern municipalities generally showed lower and more heterogeneous levels of convergence across these conditions. Stakeholder-specific assessments showed broadly similar spatial patterns but differed in the relative importance assigned to individual conditions. Pastoralists tended to prioritize drivers directly affecting daily herd management, such as grazing pressure and ecosystem degradation, whereas government, academics and civil society organizations placed greater emphasis on broader institutional, ecological and social processes, including communal land-governance constraints and migration. Despite these differences, stakeholder perspectives converged on several key challenges affecting CaprinoCultura’s long-term viability. These findings underscore the importance of using participatory knowledge in spatial analysis to coproduce more context-specific and socially informed strategies for the management and sustainability of pastoral systems. Therefore, by integrating stakeholder knowledge and priorities into spatial analysis, this study provides a novel operational approach for a participatory vulnerability assessment that enhances adaptive governance in dryland pastoral systems.