Resilience, adaptability and transformability in socialecological systems brian walker 1, c. A resilience approach has guided the development of this workinprogress procedure for assessing resilience in socialecological systems sess. Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social. Resilience of a system needs to be considered in terms of the attributes that govern the systems dynamics.
Resilience is linked to dynamics of social systems such as adaptability and transformability policy strategy to ensure sustainability of natural resources and human communities vulnerability focuses on exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity policy strategies that emphasize assets of communities that will enhance adaptability. Resilience, adaptability and transformability in socialecological systems. Transition and resilience 91 subsequent work revealed common patterns affecting resilience in social and economic as well as ecological and socialecological systems. Resilience of a system needs to be considered in terms of the attributes that govern the system s dynamics. Three related attributes of social ecological systems sess determine their future trajectories.
It covers an array of disciplines from the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities concerned with the relationship between society and the lifesupporting ecosystems on which human wellbeing ultimately depends. Three related attributes of socialecological systems sess determine their future trajectories. Resilience thinking addresses the dynamics and development of complex socialecological systems ses. Holling, who defined resilience as a measure of the persistence of systems and of their ability to absorb. Resilience is generally taken to comprise three capacities. Second, we suggest that the existing conceptualization of organizational resilience could be expanded to include transformative change, which may allow firms to mitigate the operational impacts of reaching adaptation limits. To build multidimensional poverty trap models that assess how socialecological relationships and perceptions about them. Ecology and society resilience, adaptability and transformability in socialecological systems short description system resilience is used in varying context that is always evolving and can be an imprecise concept. Socialecological resilience to coastal disasters science. Ecology and society formerly conservation ecology is a quarterly open access interdisciplinary scientific journal published by the resilience alliance. The emergence of a perspective for socialecological systems analyses 2006 16 3 global environmental change, pp. Furthermore, resilience in social ecological systems has the added capacity of. Overcoming undesirable resilience in the global food system volume 1 tom h. Resilience, adaptability and transformability all require capacity for social learning about systemic change in response to management intervention, external shocks and change.
Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social ecological. In ecology, resilience is the capacity of an ecosystem to respond to a perturbation or disturbance by resisting damage and recovering quickly. Integrating resilience, adaptability and transformability carl folke 1. The database provides empirical data on thresholds and regime shifts within a socialecological system. In practice many people still use the term resilience in the sense of bouncing back to an original state. In this section, we describe how features of social ecological systems could be implemented in an adaptive network model table 1, and briefly summarise the tools available to analyse these models. Cinner and barnes introduce key social factors that provide resilience in linked social ecological systems, including 1 assets, 2 flexibility, 3 social organization, 4 learning, 5. Overcoming undesirable resilience in the global food. The following three papers focus on different aspects of how the dynamics of socialecological systems are determined. Resilience thinking integrating resilience, adaptability and. Social dimensions of resilience in socialecological systems. In practice many people still use the term resilience in the. The module introduces key theoretical concepts associated with regime shifts, and a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches for analysing regime shifts in socialecological systems. A loosely organized cluster of concepts and tools for understanding and managing change in complex social ecological systems 20, 21, 28.
Assessing resilience, adaptability, and transformability in indonesian mangrove socialecological systems ben brown presentation at mmm4 st augustine, fla. Assessing resilience, adaptability, and transformability. Walker b et al 2004 resilience, adaptability and transformability in socialecological systems ecol. In resilience work adaptability is referred to as the capacity of people in a socialecological system to build resilience through collective action whereas transformability is the capacity of people to create a fundamentally new socialecological system when ecological, political, social, or economic conditions make the existing system. The body of knowledge developed by the ra encompasses key concepts of resilience, adaptability and transformability and. A general framework for analyzing sustainability of social ecological systems.
Sep 20, 2019 resilience is generally considered the capacity to tolerate, absorb, cope with, and adjust to changing social or environmental conditions while retaining key elements of structure, function, and identity. Resilience and sustainable development esdn quarterly report no 26 6 1 executive summary the term resilience originated in the i o o is in the field of ecology from the research of. Stockholm resilience centre focuses on bridging this gap. Carpenter, brian walker, marten scheffer, terry chapin, johan rockstrom. Resilience, climate change, and business as usual conservation in ecology, the concept of resilience was used to refer to recovery from disturbance. Carpenter 3, brian walker 14, marten scheffer 5, terrv chapin 6, and johan rockstrom 17 abstract. Pdf resilience, adaptability and transformability in social.
Social and ecological vulnerability to disasters and outcomes of any particular extreme event are influenced by buildup or erosion of resilience both before and after disasters occur. Climate resilience is generally defined as the capacity for a socioecological system to. Resilience, sustainability and transformability of cities as. It is argued that managing for resilience enhances the likelihood of sustaining desirable pathways for development in changing environments where the future is unpredictable. Resilience adaptation transformation assessment and. Ecology and society resilience, adaptability and transformability in socialecological systems short description system resilience is used in varying context that is.
Integrating resilience, adaptability and transformability author carl folke, stephen r. It describes the degree to which the system is capable of selforganization, learning and adaptation holling 1973, gunderson. Resilience thinking can help us understand how to initiate and. Sustaining ecosystems and people in a changing world washington, dc. Assessing resilience, adaptability, and transformability in. Bringing together socialecological system and territoire concepts to. Such perturbations and disturbances can include stochastic events such as fires, flooding, windstorms, insect population explosions, and human activities such as deforestation, fracking of the ground for oil extraction, pesticide sprayed in soil, and. When resilience is enhanced, a system is more likely to tolerate disturbance events without collapsing into a qualitatively different state that is controlled by a different set of processes. The third section reports ongoing efforts and explorative work in resilience research toward understanding social ecological system dynamics and its implications for sustainability, a research integration that is still in its infancy. Economic and social challenges include more volatile prices in liberalized markets, sudden changes in access to markets, e. Operationalising resilience in socialecological systems brian walker. The science of social ecological systems provides a framework known as resilience thinking 1 for understanding the processes of ecosystem change that are necessary for adaptation, and longterm sustainability.
This paper examines the contribution of resilience thinking for socialecological systems sess in understanding sustainability and the need to preserve natural resources in the face of external perturbations. The resilience perspective is increasingly used as an approach for understanding the dynamics of socialecological systems. Their combined citations are counted only for the first article. Resilience offers escape from trapped thinking on poverty. Enhancing resilience and justice in climate adaptation laws. Resilience the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks has. It is not only about being transdisciplinary and avoiding partial and oneviewpoint solutions. Assessing the socialecological resilience literature jstor. Exploring resilience in socialecological systems through. Resilience in this context is the capacity of a ses to continually change and adapt yet remain within critical.
Resilience, vulnerability, adaptive capacity, and social capital. Resilience is generally considered the capacity to tolerate, absorb, cope with, and adjust to changing social or environmental conditions while retaining key elements of structure, function, and identity. The following three papers focus on different aspects of how the dynamics of social ecological systems are determined. Carpenter 2, and ann kinzig 3 1 csiro sustainable ecosystems. Cinner and barnes introduce key social factors that provide resilience in linked socialecological systems, including 1 assets, 2 flexibility, 3 social organization, 4 learning, 5. Pdf resilience, adaptability and transformability in. We discuss alternative definitions of adaptability and transformability to clarify or avoid the notion of desirability. Resilience represents the capacity of a socialecological system, when. The capacity of a socialecological system to cope with a hazardous event or disturbance. Resilience, adaptability and transformability in socialecological systems article pdf available in ecology and society 92, article 5 november 2003 with 12,926 reads how we measure reads.
Rather than focusing on narrowly defined policy goals and seeking optimal states, resilience thinking stresses that human societies should manage general system properties with resilience, adaptability, and transformability in mind 46. Resilience research demonstrates that these relationships are crucial in shaping the dynamics of socialecological systems, and emphasizes that the biosphere is the foundation for all social and economic activity fig. Apr 20, 2017 cities can be understood as complexadaptive systems that have the opportunity to manage their resilience towards sustainability through processes of transformation. They think that adaptation for species and ecosystems means doing what we can to remove other stressors in other words, exactly what we do. Resilience and sustainable development esdn quarterly report no 26 7 this exposes the strong need for sd governance to embrace resilience thinking. Resilience the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks has four. Resilient socialecological systems incorporate diverse mechanisms for living with, and learning from, change and unexpected shocks. The development of a resilience workbook arose from requests to the resilience alliance for advice and assistance in how to assess the resilience of.
Any complex system, such as an ecosystem, brain, body, individual, family, society, population, and socioecological system, interacts and responds to the. Resilience in this context is the capacity of a ses to continually change and adapt yet remain within critical thresholds. Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social ecological systems. A resilience thinking approach tries to investigate how these interacting systems of people and nature or socialecological systems can best be managed to ensure a sustainable and resilient supply of the essential ecosystem services on which humanity depends. Request pdf resilience, adaptability and transformability in socialecological systems the concept of resilience has evolved considerably since hollings. This article presents the origin of the resilience perspective and provides an overview of its development to date. Stone 1996, ecosystem resilience, stability and productivity. Several of the authors of the special issue on resilience in socialecological systems. Resilience, vulnerability, adaptive capacity, and social. Resilience in this context is the capacity of a ses to continually change and adapt yet remain within. Its usage has evolved over time to encompass social ecological systems interwoven systems of human societies and ecosystems.
So, resilience as a concept is not necessarily straightforward, and there are many operational definitions in existence. Resilience the capacity of a system to absorb disturba. Socialecological resilience thinking as a bridging concept in transdisciplinary research on climatechange adaptation. The socioecological approach to resilience builds on the scholarship of c. Walker b, l gunderson, a kinzig, c folke, s carpenter, and l schultz. Folke c, olsson p, peterson g 2006 water rats resilience, adaptability, and transformability in lake and wetland socialecological systems. The concept of urban resilience has been applied in many different disciplines climate change, disaster risk reduction, planning, economy, sociology and psychology which. Assessing and managing resilience in socialecological. Socialecological resilience thinking as a bridging. Resilience is a property of these linked social ecological systems ses.
Transformability the capacity of actors to create a fundamentally new system when ecological, economic, or social structures make the existing system untenable. Resilience alliance 2007 assessing resilience in socialecological. Integrating resilience, adaptability and transformability. The nature of complex systems is to produce emergent phenomena such as resilience, adaptability, and transformability. The resilience adaptation transformation assessment and learning framework complements, and expands the scope of published tools and guidelines on resilience, including a host of resources on the resilience alliance database1 on thresholds and regime shifts in ecological and social. Within this context resilience is viewed as one of three integrated capacities. Different interpretations of what is meant by resilience, however, cause confusion. Resilience, adaptability, and transformability in the goulburnbroken catchment, australia.
Todays farming systems face a broad range of environmental, economic, social and institutional challenges. Socialecological resilience a typical definition of socialecological resilience in the work of the resilience alliance is, t he capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure and feedbacks. Social ecological networks the foundation for an adaptive network model is a network conceptualisation of social ecological systems. Water rats resilience, adaptability, and transformability in lake and wetland socialecological systems. Holling, who challenged the assumption that ecosystems respond to disturbances by rebounding to a static equilibrium i. Transformability refers to fundamentally altering the nature of a system. There is a major distinction between resilience and adaptability, on the one hand, and transformability on the other. Exploring resilience and transformability of a river basin in the. Resilience thinking addresses the dynamics and development of complex social ecological systems ses.
Request pdf resilience, adaptability and transformability in socialecological systems the concept of resilience has evolved considerably since hollings 1973 seminal paper. The resilience alliance ra is a research organization comprised of scientists and practitioners from many disciplines who collaborate to explore the dynamics of socialecological systems. Resilience, adaptability and transformability in socialecological. Resilience is the capacity of a socialecological system to absorb or withstand perturbations and other stressors such that the system remains within the same regime, essentially maintaining its structure and functions. Resilience and adaptability have to do with the dynamics of a particular system, or a closely related set of systems. Disaster management requires multilevel governance systems that can enhance. A framework to assess the resilience of farming systems.
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