Resilience Of Social-ecological Systems Research Articles

Panarchy theory for convergence.

Coping with surprise and uncertainty resulting from the emergence of undesired and unexpected novelty or the sudden reorganization of systems at multiple spatiotemporal scales requires both a scientific process that can incorporate diverse expertise and viewpoints, and a scientific framework that can account for the structure and dynamics of interacting social-ecological systems (SES) and the inherent uncertainty of what might emerge in the future. We argue that combining a convergence scientific process with a panarchy framework provides a pathway for improving our understanding of, and response to, emergence. Emergent phenomena are often unexpected (e.g., pandemics, regime shifts) and can be highly disruptive, so can pose a significant challenge to the development of sustainable and resilient SES. Convergence science is a new approach promoted by the U.S. National Science Foundation for tackling complex problems confronting humanity through the integration of multiple perspectives, expertise, methods, tools, and analytical approaches. Panarchy theory is a framework useful for studying emergence, because it characterizes complex systems of people and nature as dynamically organized and structured within and across scales of space and time. It accounts for the fundamental tenets of complex systems and explicitly grapples with emergence, including the emergence of novelty, and the emergent property of social-ecological resilience. We provide an overview of panarchy, convergence science, and emergence. We discuss the significant data and methodological challenges of using panarchy in a convergence approach to address emergent phenomena, as well as state-of-the-art methods for overcoming them. We present two examples that would benefit from such an approach: climate change and its impacts on social-ecological systems, and the relationships between infectious disease and social-ecological systems.

Towards a Social-Ecological-Entropy Perspective of Sustainable Exploitation of Natural Resources

An innovative and integrative modeling strategy for assessing the sustainability and resilience of social-ecological systems (SES) is presented by introducing a social-ecological entropy production (SEEP) method. In analogy to the thermodynamic entropy production of irreversible processes, we discuss a theoretical model that relates energy and information flow with the cultural and epistemological peculiarities of different communities that exploit the same natural resource. One of the innovative aspects of our approach comes from the fact that sustainability is assessed by a single parameter (SEEP) incorporating the simulation outcomes of all the populations participating in the dynamics, and not only on the fate of the resource. This is significant as far as the non-linearities introduced by the coupling of the different dynamics considered may lead to high sensitivity to small perturbations. Specifically, by assuming two possible types of technical and environmental knowledge-transfer methods [direct (D) and phase-in (P)] within each one of the two communities that exploit and restore a resource, we generate four mathematical models to explore the long-term sustainability scenario due to the intervention, by a new epistemological community, of an initially sustainable resource-community SES. By exploring the space of four key parameters characterizing the degree of technical and environmental knowledge, as well as the rates of social inclusion and knowledge transfer, our simulations show that, from 400 scenarios studied in each case, the P-P model predicts 100% sustainable cases in the use of the resource after the intervention by the second community. The mixed scenarios P-D and D-P predict about 29%, and the D-D scenario only predicts 23% of sustainable cases. Catastrophic outcomes are predicted at about 71% in P-D and D-P scenarios, and about 77% of extinction of the system by exhaustion of the resource and community populations in the D-D scenario. In this form, our theoretical strategy and the knowledge-transfer scenarios studied may help policymakers to find a priori science-based criteria to solve possible controversies arising from social-ecological interventions.

Contribution of Home Gardens to Sustainable Development: Perspectives from A Supported Opinion Essay.

Home gardening has a long history that started when humans became sedentary, being traditionally considered an accessible source of food and medicinal plants to treat common illnesses. With trends towards urbanization and industrialization, particularly in the post-World War II period, the importance of home gardens as important spaces for growing food and medicinal plants reduced and they began to be increasingly seen as decorative and leisure spaces. However, the growing awareness of the negative impacts of agricultural intensification and urbanization for human health, food quality, ecosystem resilience, and biodiversity conservation motivated the emergence of new approaches concerning home gardens. Societies began to question the potential of nearby green infrastructures to human wellbeing, food provisioning, and the conservation of traditional varieties, as well as providers of important services, such as ecological corridors for wild species and carbon sinks. In this context. and to foster adaptive and resilient social–ecological systems, our supported viewpoint intends to be more than an exhaustive set of perceptions, but a reflection of ideas about the important contribution of home gardens to sustainable development. We envision these humble spaces strengthening social and ecological components, by providing a set of diversified and intermingled goods and services for an increasingly urban population.

Snapshots of Nature-Based Recreation Across Rural Landscapes: Insights from Geotagged Photographs in the Northeastern United States.

Nature-based recreation is of increasing economic importance to rural communities transitioning away from traditional natural resource extraction. Rural areas are rich in cultural ecosystem services (CES) that function as essential public goods, providing benefits to livelihoods and fostering conservation of large landscapes. Geotagged photographs from social media platforms capture detailed information on public use of natural areas that can be useful for stakeholders interested in promoting resilient social-ecological systems, but applications of such "big data" are often limited in either spatiotemporal or thematic scope. We integrated multiple aspects of crowdsourced image data to better understand human-environment interactions, focusing on the Northern Forest, a culturally and ecologically significant region of the northeastern United States. Images for the region were mined from Flickr, a crowdsourcing image platform, from 2012 to 2017 and assigned themes via a neural network-cluster analysis pipeline while geographic drivers of nature-based visitor engagement were assessed with random forest models to predict use of CES across the Northern Forest. Daily and seasonal patterns in photography were broadly consistent throughout the region, whereas annual photography trends were more variable. Eleven core themes were identified in images, with 70% of photographs depicting activities related to CES. Visitor engagement with nature was greater near roads and shorelines, and at higher elevations, reflecting tensions between accessibility and aesthetics for recreation. Automated image classification tools can rapidly extract relevant information from crowdsourced photography for exploring human-environment interactions, but researchers should consider multiple spatial and temporal scales in CES assessments of large social-ecological systems.

Mechanism analysis of ecosystem services (ES) changes under the proposed supply-demand framework: A case study of Jiangsu Province, China

Characterizing the structure, process, and function of ecosystems, ecosystem services (ES) closely impacts human well-being. It is significant to reveal the complex pathways of factors driving ES based on the supply–demand framework to supplement knowledge about ES change. Therefore, A conceptual framework of ES change from the supply–demand perspective was constructed first. Then, the structural equation model (SEM) method was employed to reveal the mechanism of ES changes driven by socioeconomic and natural ecological factors and to measure their direct and indirect effects. The main findings are: The social and economic factors indirectly affect ES, with effects of −0.549 and −0.154, respectively, from the demand side. Natural conditions, as the supply-side factors, directly and indirectly affect ES, with effects of 4.342 and −1.721. Land use directly acts on ES from the supply side as an intermediary that links the socioeconomic factors and natural conditions, with a direct effect of −2.735. The effect sizes of drivers on different ES are different, however generally conform to the proposed mechanism framework. This study follows the theory of Coupled Human and Natural Systems and contributes to the construction of resilient social-ecological system.

Leveraging Governance Performance to Enhance Climate Resilience

AbstractEnhancing the resilience of complex social‐ecological systems (SES) to climate change requires transformative changes. Yet, there are knowledge gaps on how best to achieve transformation. In this study, we present an approach for assessing governance performance in SES and identifying leverage points to ultimately enhance climate resilience. The approach combines three different methods including a capital approach framework, fuzzy cognitive mapping, and a leverage points analysis. Using a coastal case‐study in Algoa Bay, South Africa, the performance of governance processes contributing to different forms of capital is assessed. Subsequently, leverage points ‐ where a small shift may lead to transformative changes in the system as a whole ‐ are identified based on measures of centrality and performance. Results suggest that a range of leverage points can improve governance performance and therefore climate resilience in the case‐study. Leverage points include improving (a) support from the provincial government; (b) priority given to climate change in the integrated development plan; (c) frequency of collaborations; (d) participation in the implementation of climate action plans; (e) allocation of funding to climate change actions; (f) the overall level of preparedness in terms of staff with relevant expertise; (g) public awareness and understanding of climate change. The approach can also be used to analyze and model the relations and interactions between capitals. The study advances methodological and theoretical knowledge on the identification of leverage points for enabling transformations toward climate resilience and broader sustainability goals in SES.

Social network analysis of a landscape-scale conservation initiative in South Africa

Assessment of social relations, including social network analysis, is central to understanding collaborative processes for environmental decision-making and action. The capacity of network role players to learn and adapt appropriately to uncertainty and change is a critical determinant of the resilience of socialecological systems. Poor social network structure can predispose failure. In this study, we used social network analysis to explore learning capacity and network resilience in a multi-authority conservation initiative on the West Coast of South Africa (Dassenberg Coastal Catchment Partnership). Our analysis focused on structural variables for network learning and resilience, namely connectivity, heterogeneity, and centrality. The governance network was found to be structurally connected, with the interaction between heterogeneous organisations and sectors, and centralised around a core group of actors. The network had good structural features to enable learning. However, the high level of centrality, and dependence on a small number of core actors, rendered the network potentially vulnerable to dealing with complex challenges. We recommend that core actors (1) reflect on their core functions and whether the network can absorb these functions if they were to leave and (2) tap into the knowledge potential of actors on the network periphery or invite new actors to the network when dealing with complex challenges. This may require the network to diverge into decentralised subgroups to deal with complex issues. We further suggest that the Dassenberg Coastal Catchment Partnership network incorporate social network research with qualitative monitoring into a long-term plan to monitor the movement and influence of actors as the initiative evolves. Significance: This study illustrates how social network analysis can help researchers, public-sector organisations, and donor agencies to monitor the structural features of governance networks that enable or disable learning and resilience within landscape-scale conservation initiatives. Our results illustrate how social network analysis can assist public-sector actors to reflect on their roles and whether there is redundant competency within the network to maintain its resilience.

The inclusion of fisheries and tourism in marine protected areas to support conservation in Indonesia

With the rapid growth of Indonesia’s marine protected area (MPAs) estate in Indonesia, reaching 23.9 million hectares by January 2020, attention needs to be focused on strengthening the effectiveness of MPA management. Consolidating and expanding protection of Indonesia’s marine resources is critical with increasing pressure from a fast-expanding population, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, pollution, coastal development, unsustainable tourism and climate change. Biodiversity conservation must therefore concurrently consider multiple economic sectors such as fisheries and tourism, and their synergies with MPA management. This paper aims to outline the current landscape of fisheries and marine tourism pertaining to area-based conservation in Indonesia, to inform and support improved integration into effective MPA management. Four areas to focus efforts were identified: diversification of governance types of community-based management, improved coordination between fisheries and MPAs during planning and management implementation, the development and support of pathways for sustainable tourism, and planning for future conditions. Sustainable development for fisheries and tourism must be incorporated into all aspects of MPA management, whilst recognising that current management systems are insufficient to ensure long-term sustainability for natural resources and local communities, and strategies need to increase resilience of social-ecological systems in anticipation of future conditions.

Using a social-ecological systems perspective to identify context specific actions to build resilience in small scale fisheries in Mexico

To promote the resilience and sustainability of coastal social-ecological systems (SES), it is necessary to implement adaptive and participatory management schemes. Successful examples of adaptation to the rapid change in coastal SES exist, but the question of whether these cases may be scalable to other regions and contexts remains. To this end, the present study aimed to identify how successful management strategies implemented in a fishing cooperative in Baja California, Mexico, can be adapted to other coastal SES. In particular, this study aimed to understand whether adaptive co-management of Isla Natividad (IN) could be replicated in Isla Todos Santos (ITS), a biophysically similar coastal SES to IN but with different results with regard to fisheries management. We found that the resource systems and resources in both SESs were similar. However, there were substantial differences with regard to governance and resource users. In Isla Natividad, the level of organization orchestrated by the resource users has contributed to establishing rules and sanctions that have supported the sustainable use of fishery resources. On the contrary, in ITS, the number of resource users and their socioeconomic attributes have impeded the establishment of effective rules or sanctions. The results of this study suggest that the ITS governance system needs to be improved in order to adapt some of the IN management strategies to increase its adaptive capacity. To promote successful adaptive management, it is necessary to develop context-specific adaptive pathways that contribute to greater resilience in the SESs of this region and in other regions that face similar conditions.

Editorial: Social-ecological urbanism: Developing discourse, institutions and urban form for the design of resilient social-ecological systems in cities

Editorial: Social-ecological urbanism: Developing discourse, institutions and urban form for the design of resilient social-ecological systems in cities

Prototype of social-ecological system’s resilience analysis using a dynamic index

Resilience is understood as a social-ecological system (SES) property that embodies nature and society and a research perspective with high potential to be applied in reaching sustainability goals. A system’s property is composed of ecological and social limits representing boundaries that, if trespassed, result in the system’s regime change with increasing uncertainties. These changes can impact the reliability of delivering a set of desired ecosystem services, and consequently, society’s wellbeing can be negatively affected. Thus, modeling a complex and adaptive SES, with feedback, nonlinearities, and path–dependence becomes a crucial tool to inform building a responsible governance behavior that tackles SES resilience. This work built a prototype model of SES resilience for a case study in a Brazilian coastal city with the following aims: 1) to formalize the principles underpinning resilience into a dynamic index, 2) to assess the extent to which this understanding highlights system interdependencies and tradeoffs, and 3) to learn about the benefits of making quantitative assessments of such socio–institutional principles. Multiscale Integrated Model of Ecosystem Services – MIMES (Boumans et al., 2015; Oliveira et al., 2022) is a SES modeling framework using System Dynamics that embraces complexities’ attributes in an interdisciplinary and integrated model. Constructing a causal loop diagram embracing the social sphere represented by the seven resilience principles proposed by Biggs et al. (2015), revealed the necessity to include social goals in the model. It was considered that the Homo economicus represents the most common social perspective and determinant for those goals. Ten different types of ecosystem services were extracted from the ecological part of the simulation (Oliveira et al. 2022) and then combined with those seven resilience principles into the Dynamic Resilience Index (DRI) using a Cobb Douglas–like production function. The numerical simulation produced four insights about resilience that are described and discussed: 1st insight: resilience of what to what? The resilience of the whole system in providing a set of Ecosystem Services against changes in slow variables; 2nd insight: resilience presents seasonal variations; 3rd insight: the system is operating as if it is in the K phase during ecological succession; 4th insight: not all resilience principles have the same weight in resilience. Conclusions point out that resilience can present seasonal variations, and that response diversity and functional redundancy are leverage principles with higher influence in resilience.

Actor-network theory and organizational resilience to climate change in community-based tourism

The tourism industry is witnessing disturbances due to climate change, increasing the risk to community-based ecotourism organizations in developing countries. There are limited studies on the resilience of tourism organizations, particularly in Latin America. We apply Actor Network Theory (ANT) in our study of an indigenous, community-based ecotourism organization in southern Mexico to understand its resilience to climate change. We generated interview data with community members both active and not active in the ecotourism organization, as well as tourists, using purposive convenience sampling, chain-referral sampling, and negative case sampling. Using theoretical thematic analysis, we examined the four steps of translation of the actor-network, as well as the adaptive capacity of the ecotourism organization. We conclude that the use of ANT provides a robust description of a tourism organization's adaptive capacity and helps elucidate the role out-migration plays in the resilience of this tourism network. By including human and non-human actants in the tourism network, this study adds to the literature on organizational climate change resilience, and provides a much-needed starting point from which to study community-based ecotourism and climate change in Latin America. The paper shows how managers can apply the Actor-Network-Theory as a lens for systems analysis: - to study the resilience in social-ecological systems in tourism - to understand the role of certain actants in the network - to examine relationships and key factors- to strengthen the adaptive capacity, and - to better withstand disturbances from climate change.

Collaboration a solution for small island developing states to address food security and economic development in the face of climate change

Collaboration and cooperation between and across countries, communities, and individuals is critical for the capacity of social-ecological systems (SES) to respond to climate change. In Solomon Islands, the tuna fisheries' SES provides food security, income, employment, and contributes significantly to the nation's economy. However, being at the frontline of climate change impacts, the fisheries' SES is under threat, and these impacts will compound existing challenges. We explore Solomon Islands' tuna fisheries' SES resilience and vulnerability with a focus on examining efforts towards coordination, cooperation, and collaboration within the fisheries and governance framework. The research reveals a ‘Pacific-way’ of building resilience through multiple scales of collaborative and cooperative governance. Regional level collaborative forums such as the Parties to the Nauru Agreement, national fisheries programmes setting up coordination and cooperative networks, and local cooperative and coordination efforts that carry out multiple functions also build tuna fisheries' SES resilience to climate change. Western technical and top-down approaches translate into social resilience when coupled with education and outreach and leveraged upon existing grass-roots collaborative and cooperative networks. These cross-scale linkages of collaboration and adaptation strategies form resilience across multiple scales of governance. However, it is important to have a deliberate multi-scalar climate change adaptation framework.

Socio-Ecological Futures: Embedded Solutions for Stakeholder-Driven Alternative Futures

Scenarios of landscape change have the capacity to address spatial and temporal issues, current and future trends, and solutions that increase capacity and/or resilience in social-ecological systems and their networks. In this study, we present a resilience framework for food–energy–water systems and demonstrate it with a case study in Magic Valley, Idaho. We formulated scenarios of change based on stakeholder input (qualitative data), researcher-developed models (quantitative data), and validation of plausibility through impact and indicator evaluation. The stakeholder engagement process identified key issues, critical uncertainties, and plausible and viable solutions to future challenges. Specifically, we analyzed cross-scenario futures and their solutions to address water quality issues in the face of climate change, land-use change conflicts, and population shifts in the region. The process activates stakeholder and research-based models to create geospatial alternative futures and their associated timesteps, with embedded solutions, which broadens and improves conventional scenario-based research. The process intends to provide policy-makers, researchers, and scenario facilitators with a strategic framework to activate solutions temporally with a stakeholder-defined suite of scenarios.

A conceptual framework for quantitatively understanding the impacts of floods/droughts and their management on the catchment's social-ecological system (C-SES)

Throughout history, factors closely associated with the development of human riparian civilization have undoubtedly included extreme hydrological events (floods and droughts). Few studies have been found on evaluating floods/droughts management from a perspective of long-term resilience of socio-ecological system perspective. In addition, there are increasing studies on conceptual frameworks on the resilience of social-ecological systems. However, resilience to what and how to measure it is still unclear and a continuing research topic. This paper aims to understand the impacts of floods/droughts and their management on the catchment socio-ecological system (C-SES) by developing a measurable resilience framework in which floods/droughts and their management are considered part of whole-of-system external drivers. It will be built on the theoretical development of SESs and inter-disciplinary hydrology and borrow the theory of elastic mechanics to consider the catchment as a socio-ecological system (C-SES) and analyze the floods/droughts and their management as external stress on C-SES. The framework includes five logically connected components; (1) defining a catchment as a resilient catchment social and ecological system(C-SES); (2) defining social-institutional and natural forces on the C-SES; (3) defining flood/drought disasters forces on the C-SES; (4) defining flood/drought management forces on the C-SES; and (5) defining and calculating the resilience of a C-SES to the forces defined in (2), (3) and (4), and analyzing the change in different categories of resilience with time.

Engaging society and building participatory governance in a rural landscape restoration context

Although the Anthropocene has heralded unprecedented recognition of, and concern about the consequences of landscape degradation to humans, pathways to effective long-term landscape restoration remain uncertain. Restoration is a human activity that resists negative trajectories of environmental change, whereas participatory governance involves relationality between those entrusted with formal governance of natural resources and those who directly use, benefit from, and impact on natural resources. This paper outlines the transdisciplinary approach of the Tsitsa Project in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa to restore a degraded rural landscape. The project aspires “To support sustainable livelihoods for local people through integrated landscape management that strives for resilient social-ecological systems, and which fosters equity in access to ecosystem services”. In the project, landscape management has included extensive restoration aimed to reduce erosion, increase grazing vegetation-cover, and reduce river silt loads. It has also involved engagement in a reflexive learning process with local residents, government officials and traditional leaders to derive a Capability Pathway for the development of participatory governance. A foundational step, Co-Knowing , initiates the pathway. The concept of epistemic justice guided the goal of fair inclusion among participants, the development of a shared vocabulary and the conceptual understanding required for local people to move towards real governance participation. Narratives from stakeholders provide evidence that the process is building participatory governance agency. These approaches provide credible evidence for the value of building participatory governance capabilities as a foundation for long-term restoration outcomes.

A framework for reviewing laws and policies for climate resilience: the case of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

This article proposes a framework for reviewing to what extent laws and policies of a legal system support climate resilience. This article adopts the social-ecological system (SES) resilience theory and translates its core features into an operational framework which consists of four legal dimensions crucial for promoting climate resilience – adaptiveness of law, distributive justice, broad participation, and cross-scale interactions, and further identifies several indicators below each dimension. Then this article operationalizes the four legal dimensions via reviewing current Vietnamese climate adaptation laws and policies to assess to what extent they promote a climate-resilient Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD). While various barriers can be found in the current legal framework and policies which impede climate resilience, the latest National Climate Change Adaptation Plan demonstrates great improvement in facilitating climate resilience in a just, participatory and coordinated manner.

Fourteen propositions for resilience, fourteen years later

In 2006, Walker et al. published an article titled, “A Handful of Heuristics and Some Propositions for Understanding Resilience in Social-ecological Systems.” The article was incorporated into the <em>Ecology and Society</em> special feature, Exploring Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems. Walker et al. identified five heuristics and posed 14 propositions for understanding resilience in social-ecological systems. At the time, the authors hoped the paper would promote experimentation, critique, and application of these ideas in resilience and social-ecological systems research. To determine the extent to which these propositions have achieved the authors’ hopes, we reviewed the scientific literature on social-ecological systems since the article was published. Using Scopus, we identified 627 articles that cited the Walker et al. article. We then identified and assessed the articles relative to each proposition. In addition, we conducted a more general Scopus review for articles that did not cite the Walker et al. article specifically but incorporated a proposition’s concepts. Overall, articles often cite Walker et al. as a reference for a definition of a heuristic or ecological resilience generally and not to reference a specific proposition. Nonetheless, every proposition was at least mentioned in the literature and used to advance resilience scholarship on social-ecological systems. Eleven propositions were tested by multiple articles through application of case studies or other research, and 7 of the 11 propositions were substantially discussed and advanced. Finally, three propositions were heavily critiqued either as concepts in resilience literature or in their application.

Using Cultural Consensus Analysis to Measure Diversity in Social–Ecological Knowledge for Inclusive Climate Adaptation Planning

AbstractClimate adaptation is context specific, and inclusion of diverse forms of knowledge is crucial for developing resilient social–ecological systems. Emphasis on local inclusion is increasing, yet participatory approaches often fall short of facilitating meaningful engagement of diverse forms of knowledge. A central challenge is the lack of a comprehensive and comparative understanding of the social–ecological knowledge that various stakeholders use to inform adaptation decisions. We employed cultural consensus analysis to quantitatively measure and compare social–ecological knowledge within and across three stakeholder groups: government employees, researchers, and local residents in rural coastal Maryland. The results show that 1) local residents placed more emphasis on addressing socioeconomic and cultural changes than researchers and government employees, and 2) that the greatest variation in social–ecological knowledge was found among local residents. These insights yielded by cultural consensus analysis are beneficial for facilitating more inclusive adaptation planning for resilient social–ecological systems.

Quantifying socio‐economic novelty in fisheries social‐ecological systems

AbstractSocio‐economic development has shaped fisheries social‐ecological systems (SES) worldwide across different scales. No work has yet undertaken how this development led to novel, not experienced before, systems structure in marine SES. Here, we quantify socio‐economic novelty as the degree of dissimilarity relative to a specific spatiotemporal baseline in the Baltic Sea fisheries SES between 1975 and 2015. We used catch by "gears," catch by "commercial groups" and trade ("import" and "export") as respective indicators of novelty at national, regional and international governance levels. We found that socio‐economic novelty increased over time nonlinearly in relation to the 1975–1979 baseline. The contribution to total novelty shifted from the dominance of “gears” and “commercial groups” in the late 1990s and early 2000s to “import” and “export” after the mid‐2000s, i.e. from national and regional levels to the international level. The fastest increase in novelty occurred with the trade dominance shift, primarily related to monetary value rather than quantity. Spatially, novelty emerged with a large difference across countries, and a major contribution by Sweden, Denmark and Poland. We identified the influence of different management interventions and governance actions on the emergence of novelty in the Baltic SES. The decreasing socio‐economic novelty at national and regional levels could indicate reduced variability due to management intervention in recent years which might decrease SES resilience to shocks. Calculating socio‐economic novelty and studying its drivers at different scales could provide a better understanding of SES complexity and inform urgently needed adaptation and transformation towards sustainable future pathways.