Welcome to the A-LA-CARTE home page
A-LA-CARTE (Assessing limits of adaptation to climate change and opportunities for resilience to be enhanced) was a four-year collaborative research project (2011-2014) of FICCA (the Finnish Research Programme on Climate Change). A-LA-CARTE seeked to explore the limits of adaptation to anticipated climate change, to investigate the extent to which present-day systems are resilient to changes in climate and to explore the options for enhancing this resilience. The project addressed these issues through case studies concerning: (A) agrifood systems, focusing on food supply by farms and access to food by consumers, and (B) biodiversity and conservation challenges posed by physical and regulatory barriers. Linkages between the two were also examined (Figure 1).
Figure 1. A menu for investigating limits to adaptation and options for enhancing resilience in agrifood systems and conservation planning under a changing climate. WP denotes Work Package.
Research team and funding
A-LA-CARTE was co-ordinated at the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE)
Project team: Timothy Carter (Project Leader), Stefan Fronzek, Risto Heikkinen, Ismo Lahtinen, Olga Mashkina, Hanna Mela, Nina Pirttioja, Juha Pöyry, Anna Tainio and Raimo Virkkala,
The project included four partner organisations in Finland:
- Helsinki University, Institute of Behavioral Sciences
Project members: Reijo Miettinen and Sami Paavola
- Jyväskylä University, Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy
Project members: Marja Järvelä, Ari Paloviita and Antti Puupponen
- MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Mikkeli
Project members: Helena Kahiluoto, Heikki Lehtonen, Sari Himanen, Xing Liu, Hanna Mäkinen, Taru Palosuo, Yulia Pavlova, Karoliina Rimhanen and Reimund Rötter
- University of Eastern Finland, Department of Law (UEF)
Project members: Tapio Määttä, Suvi Borgström, Kati Kulovesi, Eugenia Recio and Leila Suvantola
The project had several international collaborating partners:
- Frank Ewert and Thomas Heckelei, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Bonn, Germany
- Pytrik Reidsma, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Netherlands
- Carina Keskitalo, Department of Social and Economic Geography, Umeå University, Sweden
- Karen O'Brien, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Norway
- Louise Simonsson, Swedish Defence Research Agency, Linköping, Sweden
- Martin Sykes, Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystems Analysis, Lund University, Sweden
- Thomas Hickler, Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F), Frankfurt am Main, Germany
A number of stakeholder partners have also expressed interest in the project:
- Tom Frisk, Centre for Development, Transport and the Environment (ELY), Pirkanmaa
- Anna-Liisa Kiiskinen, ELY, Central Finland
- Tiia Yrjölä, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
- Johan Åberg, Agricultural Producers Union (MTK)
- Aimo Saano, Metsähallitus Natural Heritage Services
- Pekka Salminen, Ministry of the Environment
- Lauri Saaristo, Forestry Development Centre TAPIO
- Risto Sulkava, Finnish Association for Nature Conservation
- Petteri Tolvanen, WWF
Funding for A-LA-CARTE was from the Academy of Finland: 1,060,000 Euro (Decision No. 140806).
Project publications
A-LA-CARTE publication list (29 October 2019)
Contact information
Professor Timothy Carter, Climate Change Research Programme, Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), firstname.surname@ymparisto.fi