Holling's Adaptive Cycle Research Articles

Remembering for resilience: nature-based tourism, COVID-19, and green transitions

The COVID-19 pandemic had transformative effects on the tourism sector at an unparalleled scale. With the rapid onset of unprecedented travel restrictions, tourists were abruptly confined to experiences in their regional surroundings that led to new and refreshed relationships with local destinations. This paper draws on qualitative interviews with small tourism businesses in two distinct but proximate nature-based destinations in Ontario, Canada and considers how they responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings are positioned within Holling's Adaptive Cycle to consider implications for ongoing resiliency planning for disturbances relating to climate change. Over a 2-year period (2020–2022), SMEs revealed that after an initially turbulent period they quickly adapted to the absence of international long-haul visitors by embracing a surge in domestic demand for nature-based, outdoor experiences. The paper contributes to the literature on tourism SMEs by connecting experiences of COVID-19 to resiliency planning for future predictable disturbances. Two critical lessons for enhancing destination resiliency are identified: engagement of regional tourism demand, and destination level leadership, through investment in infrastructure and partnerships, can both be harnessed to support SMEs and their communities in transitioning toward a more sustainable, resilient and climate-friendly tourism future. Given the growing demand for tourism businesses to transition away from environmentally harmful practices and a longstanding dependency on economic growth, these resources can help destinations enhance preparedness for future changes to tourism flows driven by decarbonization scenarios and increased climatic impacts.

Systemic analysis of a developing plant community on the island of Surtsey

Based on our recently developed method to quantify Gunderson and Holling's adaptive cycle, we provide a holistic analysis of a vascular plant community on the volcanic island of Surtsey between 2000 and 2018. We identify one complete adaptive cycle during the study period, which reflects the system's transition from a classic pioneer to a grassland community. Our results support the hypothesis that nutrients brought to the island by breeding gulls are the main driver of this development. The study period includes the beginning of a second cycle, which deviates from the pattern described in the metaphor. Indeed, the cycle's exploitation phase is interrupted by a simultaneous decline of all three systemic variables. We can trace this phenomenon back to a severe drought in 2012. Furthermore, the method allows us to establish the systemic role of individual species during the maturation process.

Destination Resilience and Sustainable Tourism Development

Measuring the resilience of a dynamic system is a difficult undertaking. This article is an effort to present intersecting theories between destination resilience and sustainable tourism. Traditional tourism management relies on a narrow focus based in scientific approaches that are often linear in concept. This type of thinking may lead to some limitations in planning and a full understanding of how the tourism industry operates on various scales. Resilience describes the capacity of a system to absorb change and continue to persist. Sustainability is the intersection of social, economic, institutional, and ecological variables. In this article, a heuristic model is presented that combines and adapts Butler's Tourism Area Life Cycle and Holling's Adaptive Cycle. This heuristic model is intended to stimulate theories on destination resilience within the context of sustainable tourism.

Holocene human adaptation in the Namib Desert: A model based on the concept of Holling's loop

Climatic amelioration during the mid-Holocene Optimum is associated with hunter-gatherer occupation of remote sites in the Namib Desert. Subsequent changes in late Holocene site distribution suggest there were alternative responses to increasing aridity during this period. Abandonment or episodic occupation is evident in some areas, while others show an emphasis on mountain refugia and resource anomalies. Specialized coping strategies developed during this time allowed a broad re-occupation of the desert when conditions improved briefly during the Medieval Warm Epoch. Successive patterns of settlement and subsistence in the Namib Desert Holocene sequence exemplify the four moments of Holling's adaptive cycle.

Socioeconomic complexity and the resilience of hunter-gatherer societies

Human societies have been challenged by internal and external disturbances throughout history. However, our knowledge of the dynamics and parameters of their resilience remains remarkably incomplete. This deficiency is particularly evident for the longest part of our past, when humans lived as hunter-gatherers.Following Holling's adaptive cycle model, we propose an approach to reconstruct socio-economic developments in hunter-gatherer populations as transitions between different attractor states of complex adaptive systems, with connectedness as a key concept. This allows a reinterpretation of the classical ‘simple’–‘complex’ hunter-gatherer dichotomy by shifting attention to the mechanisms of adaptation and dynamics holding socio-ecologic systems of hunter-gatherers in tension. Applied to the situation in Europe during the late Pleistocene, a model explaining the different long-term dynamics observable in the aftermath of the arrival of the first anatomically modern humans is discussed.

A Theory of Transformative Agency in Linked Social-Ecological Systems

Westley, F. R., O. Tjornbo, L. Schultz, P. Olsson, C. Folke, B. Crona and Ö. Bodin. 2013. A theory of transformative agency in linked social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society 18(3): 27. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-05072-180327

Navigating challenges and opportunities of land degradation and sustainable livelihood development in dryland social-ecological systems: a case study from Mexico.

Drylands are one of the most diverse yet highly vulnerable social-ecological systems on Earth. Water scarcity has contributed to high levels of heterogeneity, variability and unpredictability, which together have shaped the long coadaptative process of coupling humans and nature. Land degradation and desertification in drylands are some of the largest and most far-reaching global environmental and social change problems, and thus are a daunting challenge for science and society. In this study, we merged the Drylands Development Paradigm, Holling's adaptive cycle metaphor and resilience theory to assess the challenges and opportunities for livelihood development in the Amapola dryland social-ecological system (DSES), a small isolated village in the semi-arid region of Mexico. After 450 years of local social-ecological evolution, external drivers (neoliberal policies, change in land reform legislation) have become the most dominant force in livelihood development, at the cost of loss of natural and cultural capital and an increasingly dysfunctional landscape. Local DSESs have become increasingly coupled to dynamic larger-scale drivers. Hence, cross-scale connectedness feeds back on and transforms local self-sustaining subsistence farming conditions, causing loss of livelihood resilience and diversification in a globally changing world. Effective efforts to combat desertification and improve livelihood security in DSESs need to consider their cyclical rhythms. Hence, we advocate novel dryland stewardship strategies, which foster adaptive capacity, and continuous evaluation and social learning at all levels. Finally, we call for an effective, flexible and viable policy framework that enhances local biotic and cultural diversity of drylands to transform global drylands into a resilient biome in the context of global environmental and social change.

Responses of agricultural bioenergy sectors in Brandenburg (Germany) to climate, economic and legal changes: An application of Holling's adaptive cycle

Agricultural bioenergy production is subject to dynamics such as yield fluctuations, volatile prices, resource competition, new regulation and policy, innovation and climate change. This raises questions, to what extent bioenergy production is able to adapt to changes and overcome critical events. These dynamics have important implications for effective policy development. Using a case study method, which draws on various data sources, we investigate in detail how agricultural bioenergy sectors in the German State of Brandenburg adapted to diverse past events. The case analysis rests on the adaptive-cycle concept and the system properties potential, connectedness and resilience as defined by Holling and Gunderson (2002a). Our case study concludes that Brandenburg's biogas sector has a low potential and connectedness within the system, and a low resilience against crop failures. The biofuels sector displays similar properties in the short term. In the medium term the potential could increase in both sectors. The properties imply risks and opportunities for biogas production and the possibility to develop towards a stage with a higher potential and a higher connectedness. But adaptive capacity is limited and there are certain barriers for the agricultural bioenergy sectors to overcome potentially critical states. Policy needs to be tailored accordingly.

A Comparison of the Prochaska Cycle of Change and the Holling Adaptive Cycle: Exploring Their Ability to Complement Each Other and Possible Applications to Work with Offenders

The Prochaska Cycle of Change was developed in the field of cognitive behaviour and is used in areas such as nursing and criminal justice to effect behavioural changes in people. This proposes a cycle with the phases of pre‐contemplation, contemplation, determination, action and maintenance. The Holling Adaptive Cycle was developed from research into ecological systems and is also used in such areas as financial and organizational systems. This model proposes a cycle of exploitation, conservation, release and re‐organization. This paper attempts to map the two cycles on top of each other and explore how this mapping might provide useful metaphors, enhance our understanding of both cycles and provide useful tools for offenders to understand their behaviour. Resilience is a central concept of the Adaptive Cycle and in work with offenders. Just as building resilience helps natural and organizational systems to be adaptive, so too will it assist offenders to gain appropriate governance over themselves and avoid falling back into further offending. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Adapting the adaptive cycle: Hypotheses on the development of ecosystem properties and services

Ecosystems are dynamic complexes. These dynamics can be described by different ecophysiological parameters and systems theoretical concepts like succession, thermodynamics, information/network theory, resilience, adaptability and the orientor concept. In this paper, different indicators and concepts are linked to Holling's adaptive cycle metaphor in order to derive hypotheses on potential system trajectories. The hypotheses focus on an exemplary temperate forest ecosystem experiencing the adaptive cycle's four phases of exploitation, conservation, collapse and reorganization after an initializing fire event. The different properties are correlated to the number of total system connections and show varying trajectories. Additionally, the provision of selected forest ecosystem services during the different phases is hypothesized and compared to three other land use types.

Planning for Cruise Ship Resilience: An Approach to Managing Cruise Ship Impacts in Haines, Alaska

Resilience theory has management implications useful when planning for cruise ship tourism. In small coastal communities, cruise ships often provide welcomed economic incentives that can bolster a waning economy. However, in some coastal communities, the magnitude and intensity of passenger visits can reduce social resilience and induce an economic regime shift that leads to rapid socioeconomic reorganization. The implications of such a regime shift are a loss of economic diversity, reduced social resilience, and a loss of social capital. Planning for cruise ship resilience increases the likelihood of successful coping strategies and addresses the socioecological changes inherent to a cruise ship destination. Both Holling's adaptive cycle and the four principals for building resilience established by Berkes and Seixas are fundamental to a successful management plan.

Toward a new macrohistory: An extension to Sardar's ‘postnormal times’

How should futurists evaluate Sardar's announcement of ‘postnormal’ times? In contrast to existing images, what light does the postnormal metaphor shed on our global age? This paper views Sardar's postnormal times as embryonic, and extends it using ecosystems theory. To develop Sardar's concept as a macrohistory, Holling's adaptive cycle and panarchical systems are proposed as mechanisms of change that create postnormal times.

Rethinking the Galapagos Islands as a Complex Social-Ecological System: Implications for Conservation and Management

González, J. A., C. Montes, J. Rodríguez, and W. Tapia. 2008. Rethinking the Galapagos Islands as a complex social-ecological system: implications for conservation and management. Ecology and Society 13(2): 13. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-02557-130213

Change and Identity in Complex Systems

Complex systems are dynamic and may show high levels of variability in both space and time. It is often difficult to decide on what constitutes a given complex system, i.e., where system boundaries should be set, and what amounts to substantial change within the system. We discuss two central themes: the nature of system definitions and their ability to cope with change, and the importance of system definitions for the mental metamodels that we use to describe and order ideas about system change. Systems can only be considered as single study units if they retain their identity. Previous system definitions have largely ignored the need for both spatial and temporal continuity as essential attributes of identity. After considering the philosophical issues surrounding identity and system definitions, we examine their application to modeling studies. We outline a set of five alternative metamodels that capture a range of the basic dynamics of complex systems. Although Holling's adaptive cycle is a compelling and widely applicable metamodel that fits many complex systems, there are systems that do not necessarily follow the adaptive cycle. We propose that more careful consideration of system definitions and alternative metamodels for complex systems will lead to greater conceptual clarity in the field and, ultimately, to more rigorous research.