Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol An indicator set to track resilience to climate change in agriculture: A policy- maker’s perspective Livia Bizikova a, ⁎ , Patricia Larkin b , Scott Mitchell b , Ruth Waldick b,c a International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), Ottawa, ON, Canada b Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada c Agri-food and Agriculture Canada ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Resilience Agriculture Adaptation to climate change Vulnerability Indicators Canada Ontario Farm management System mapping ABSTRACT Resilience-based approaches to climate change have yet to be widely applied in agriculture. In this sector, indicators have been centered on the impacts of climate on production systems, crops, yields, infrastructure, financial performance, farmers’ livelihoods and food security. This paper focuses on designing an indicator set to capture the resilience of agriculture to inform decision-making frameworks and policies. The indicators’ selec- tion and definition were driven by their relevance for decision-making through the combined knowledge of policy and information priorities on climate change impacts and vulnerabilities as well as pragmatic issues relating to data availability. In total, 36 indicators were selected covering the following areas: regional drivers of the change to the agricultural sector (demographics, agricultural markets, climate); farmland production ac- tivities (food and feed); non-farm economy; and primary outcomes (off-farm net income, numerous environ- mental services). By coordinating this process among policy-makers with different roles in regional planning, we were able to identify shared information needs among the various sectoral representatives. The indicator se- lection process also captured policy gaps potential responses that could increase resilience and feed directly into policy reviews, thereby strengthening integration of actions across sectors. This indicator set emphasizes that the relationships between government agencies and both industry and academia may be improved by addressing gaps in data availability, accessibility, and privacy constraints. 1. Introduction Climate change impacts, vulnerability assessments and adaptation planning have become integral parts of ongoing policy-making pro- cesses (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2012). Although there are relatively few examples of legislated actions for climate change adaptation, planning for resilience to climate change is now routinely taken into account when designing policies and systems that can better deal with uncertainty (Kärrholm et al., 2014; Moraci et al., 2016). Indicators represent a critical part of the toolbox for policy- makers to characterize, develop and assess planning efforts (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2010). Two im- portant uses for indicators are in: i) identifying specific vulnerabilities and gaps in resilience with regard to a specific objective, which allows targeted policies to be defined and ii) evaluating the effectiveness of adaptation actions or programs in conferring greater resilience (Chen et al., 2016; Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2010; Ford et al., 2013). Over the last decade, considerable effort has been made to monitor the vulnerability of human and natural systems to climate change (Weber et al., 2015). A number of indicators have been designed to capture aspects of a given system’s exposure or sensitivity to climatic conditions (Chen et al., 2016; Weber et al., 2015). Often, these take the form of climate indicators tracking aspects such as precipitation (amounts and intensity) and temperature extremes (Moraci et al., 2016; Suresh, 2016). In such cases, the vulnerabilities or risk to socio- ecological systems are represented in terms of how they would be af- fected by particular large scale events (e.g., drought, monsoons). This emphasis on impacts stops short of evaluating how socioecological systems will be able to react to or recover from such impacts. It also fails to provide sufficiently detailed information to enable planners to identify and prioritize between emerging or potential risks (e.g., how frequently extremes will exceed critical thresholds). Adaptive capacity adds another layer of detail to planning, by https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.11.057 Received 8 September 2017; Received in revised form 28 November 2018; Accepted 30 November 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: lbizikova@iisd.ca (L. Bizikova), plarkin@xplornet.com (P. Larkin), ScottMitchell@CUNET.CARLETON.CA (S. Mitchell), RuthWaldick@CUNET.CARLETON.CA (R. Waldick). Land Use Policy 82 (2019) 444–456 0264-8377/ Crown Copyright © 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T