There is considerable concern about adaptive capacity in the face of climate change and how people and the environment will cope. Considering climate change in isolation is, however problematic given the complexity of influences and impacts operating on both social and ecological systems. This session will examine and discuss methods to understand how societies assess, measure and react to multiple changes, and how these multiple changes affect their livelihoods and environments. Understanding the strategies people apply in reaction to complex changes may help understanding how societies could adapt to climate change and other pressures and the role they could play in mitigation programs, via collective engagement. Among the different questions to be explored: How to measure and assess complex changes? Among the tools and instruments available to assess transformations in social ecological systems, can participatory approaches be used to also empower local communities by giving them more legitimacy in decision-making? How does the understanding of non-climatic changes help develop better adaptive and mitigation strategies? The session will be organized around 3 topics: Methods and approaches (theory and practice) for measuring complex changes in complex social and resilience in ecological systems; Using local assessment of changes for improved decisionmaking about adaptive landscape management Integrating complex landscape management into climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. (Texte integral)