Research on ecological responses under changing climatic conditions and other large scale disturbances often fails to quantify the effects of natural resource use and land management by humans in those systems. Research on how humans have modified their environment, creating novel ecosystems, has also proved to be challenging, especially when long time scales are considered. Equating social and ecological resilience with vulnerability to climatic change and other major disturbances in coupled human and natural systems needs a holistic cross-disciplinary approach. This study draws on data and approaches from the natural sciences, including ecology, climatology, and geology, and also environmental humanities/social sciences in the fields of history, literary and manuscript studies, social anthropology and archaeology. This project takes a view on the transformation of subsistent farming into modernity in the sub-arctic ecosystems of Iceland continuously over 300 years, with a thorough analysis of the ecological processes involved and the resilience of both society and ecosystems through multiple disturbances. The study uses public, private, unpublished and published collections of documents, mobilizing the many manuscript records created in the 18th-early 20th centuries many of which still exist in single copies in private hands.
Results/Conclusions
The preliminary results show the effects of climate and volcanic related disturbances, as well as the effects of long term climatic change in this system which has been ravaged by repeated disturbances, many of which have resulted in a human death toll of up to 30%. Famines were reoccurring events in the 18th and 19th century Iceland, triggered by climatic or volcanic events affecting the ecosystem productivity of these systems. An unusual level of detailed information from manuscripts resources on the study area makes it possible to conduct a full scale cultural and ecological sustainability assessment of the communities and their natural resources, some of which show a sustainable use while other show signs of severe degradation and desertification. These data include detailed demographic, livestock, economy, farm productivity and climate data for Iceland for over 300 years, documenting the intensity of land uses, the primary productivity harvested and the short and long term consequences of overharvesting following disturbances or changes in farm economy. This study provides valuable insights on how human resources uses can be addressed in current climatic change models.