An interdisciplinary agenda to assess risks of climate extremes to nature’s contributions to people
Weather and climate extremes are reshaping ecosystems and disrupting nature's contributions to people, including food, water, disaster mitigation, and well-being. This study proposes an interdisciplinary research agenda that integrates climate risk modeling with ecological and social-ecological science to better anticipate and address climate-related impacts on society.
Subject Tags
- Climate risks
- Climate adaptation
- Climate mitigation
Abstract
Weather and climate extremes are transforming ecosystems in ways that threaten society through the disruption of nature’s contributions to people (NCP) from food and water security to disaster mitigation and mental well-being. While scientists and policy makers increasingly recognize the need to account for nature-related losses from climate-driven weather extremes, major research gaps remain, particularly in how climate-altered disturbance regimes will impact NCP and associated human well-being. Addressing this gap is critical for climate mitigation and adaptation planning, because the loss of NCP amplifies social-ecological vulnerability and exacerbates climate risks. However, this cross-systems dynamic remains underrepresented in most climate risk models. Climate risk modeling offers a probabilistic view of evolving hazard regimes under climate change, while ecological research provides mechanistic insight into ecosystem responses to disturbance. We argue that bridging these fields is essential to increasing societal resilience to climate change and propose an interdisciplinary research agenda to integrate social-ecological dynamics with a climate risk perspective. Advancing this agenda is critical to project, anticipate, and plan for ecosystem-related impacts of weather and climate extremes on society.
Citation
Hülsen, S., Amaral, C., Bresch, D. N., Hayden, M. T., Kropf, C. M., LoPresti, A., ... & Dee, L. E. (2026). An interdisciplinary agenda to assess risks of climate extremes to nature’s contributions to people. Environmental Research: Climate, 5(3), 033002.
TNC Authors
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Robert I. McDonald
Lead Scientist for Nature-based Solutions. Europe
The Nature Conservancy
Email: rob_mcdonald@tnc.org