This working paper reports results from a literature review on ecosystem vulnerability to climate change undertaken within the CIFOR-led project AdaptEA, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. A total of 410 scientific publications were reviewed, with 183 studies examined in detail. Of those papers with clear geographic focus, most examined European or North American ecosystems, with only 18 studies focusing on Africa. Climatic and environmental drivers considered were temperature (52% of studies), precipitation (52%), carbon dioxide (15%) and rising sea level (11%).

Providing a detailed picture of the values for local people in the tropics is a difficult undertaking. Not only does this represent the difficulty in accounting for values outside formal markets, but it also reflects the multiplicity of the species involved and the many different ways in which trees are used. In these circumstances, one approach that can be used to gain insight is to focus on a narrower range of species, such as tree commodity crops commonly grown by smallholders, where more data on economic value are available.

To assess the adaptive capacities of agro-pastoral communities to climate change, a participatory survey was conducted in the region between February and May 2009. The survey covered in total 175 households, covering 60 households per agro-ecological zone (i.e., the zones Séno and Gourma), with 15 households per village. In the Delta zone, 55 households were available for the interview. A multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to assess the relationship between household coping strategies and selected factors.