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How to conceptualize and operationalize resilience in socio-ecological systems?
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ScienceDirect How to conceptualize and operationalize resilience in socio-ecological systems? Marjolein Sterk1,2, Ingrid A van de Leemput2 and Edwin THM Peeters2 In various scientific disciplines resilience has become a key concept for theoretical frameworks and more practical goals. The growing interest resulted in multiple definitions of resilience. This paper highlights how and why resilience has become a meaningful concept guiding multiple disciplines to understand and govern social–ecological systems. Moreover, the concept of resilience can be operationalized in complex social–ecological systems that are inherent to change and unpredictable outcomes.
Addresses 1 Faculty of Management, Science and Technology, Open University, P.O. Box 2960, 6401 DL Heerlen, The Netherlands 2 Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, PO Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands Corresponding author: Sterk, Marjolein ([email protected])
SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI, ESCI). In addition, the international policy as well as numerous non-profit organizations have embraced resilience as a mandate to make ambitious efforts to fight climate change and adapt to its effects [2,3]. These observations show that resilience as a concept has gained more and more attention in various academic fields and disciplines [4,5]. Parallel with this development a multitude of resilience definitions and a diversity of applications in particular contexts has developed [5,6,7]. This paper highlights how and why resilience has become a meaningful concept guiding multiple disciplines to understand and govern social– ecological systems. In the following we highlight that discussions about the concept have also resulted in the development of a more comprehensive theoretical framework. Looking beyond the concept of ecological resilience, this framework consists of a set of properties that leads to practical outcomes in social–ecological systems.
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 28:108–113 This review comes from a themed issue on Sustainability governance and transformation Edited by Carolien Kroeze, Harald Vranken, Marjolein Caniels and Dave Huitema
Received 27 March 2017; Received 1 September 2017; Accepted 5 September 2017
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2017.09.003
An exploration of the resilience concept The origin of studies of resilience in ecology dates back to the 1960s and 1970s (see [6,7] for a review of central work on ‘ecological resilience’). The seminal paper of Holling [8] was the first that emphasized the consequences of two different definitions of resilience for ecosystems (Figure 1). The first definition used system Figure 1
1877-3435/ã 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
(a) Engineering
resilience
Resilience is a term used in a wide array of contexts, from human health and psychology through economy to informatics and ecology and conservation biology. Its first use in ecological literature was related to the persistence of relationships within an ecosystem after disturbance, and was a measure of the ability of ecosystems to absorb changes of state variables, driving variables, and parameters, and still persists [1]. Over the past decades an explosion of studies dealing with the resilience concept has taken place as is reflected in the rise of the number of scientific publications on resilience and social–ecological systems from 5 per year in 2001 to more than 300 per year in 2016 (ISI Web of Science March 2017, Indexes: Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 28:108–113
resilience
high
high
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(b) Ecological
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Schematic representation of (a) engineering resilience, and (b) ecological resilience. The balls in the stability landscapes represent the state of the ecosystem. The black balls represent the stable equilibrium, while the grey and white balls represent a disturbed state. Engineering resilience is the resistance to disturbance and speed of return to the equilibrium, represented by dashed arrows. Ecological resilience is the size of the disturbance that a system can take before it is pushed out of its stable state. www.sciencedirect.com
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resistance to disturbance and speed of return to the equilibrium to measure resilience [9]. This definition was named ‘engineering’ resilience and focused on efficiency, constancy and predictability. These three elements are the core of the contemporarily command-and-control management philosophy, which considers spatial and temporal system dynamics as perturbations to an otherwise stable system. The second definition emphasized the magnitude of disturbances that could be absorbed before a system flips to another stable equilibrium [8]. This is known as ‘ecological’ resilience and focuses on persistence, change and unpredictability — elements embraced by the modern adaptive management philosophy. The latter definition considers system dynamics in time and space as inherent properties of ecosystems. Ecological resilience is determined by the size of the stability domain of an ecosystem. Intuitively this can be thought of as the size of a valley in which a ball resides (Figure 1). As long as the ball is not pushed out of the valley, the system will return to its original state. The ecosystems desired social or economic values as well as management perspective determine the need for a stable equilibrium. Stable states with undesired alternative states have been documented for a great variety of ecosystems like lakes, coral reefs, marine fisheries, benthic systems, wetlands, forests, savannahs, and rangelands [6,10–12]. Importantly, ecosystems comprise interactions between slow and fast processes, and between processes acting at the local, regional and global scale generating variability in the biology and abiotic environment. Those interactions are often non-linear and required for maintaining a high level of biodiversity. Since resilience of an ecosystem is affected by all these facets, resilience at a certain time or at a particular location can affect the resilience later or elsewhere. The size of a stability domain may be altered by slowly changing variables, such as land use, nutrient stocks, soil properties and biomass of long-lived organisms. These changes in ecological resilience may easily go unnoticed. Insights gained from case studies [11,12] imply that, to prevent unwanted state shifts, management best focuses on the gradual environmental changes that underlie resilience, rather than to control the unpredictable disturbances. The definition of ecological resilience described above is a purely ecological concept. However, anthropogenic pressures influence ecosystem stability and resilience. Moreover there is a growing awareness that ecosystems also influence human societies leading people to manage ecosystems for human benefits [13]. In search of sustainable use of natural resources it has become increasingly obvious that ecological and social systems preferably need to be examined and managed as integrated social– ecological systems. In the context of social–ecological systems, resilience is related to the degree to which the system is capable of self-organization, learning and adaptation [14]. Within that approach, resilience is www.sciencedirect.com
defined as the capacity of a social–ecological system to deal with change and meanwhile continue to develop. This broader view of the concept moves beyond viewing humans as external drivers of ecosystem dynamics but it rather looks at how humans are part of, and interact with the Earth system [14,15]. Remarkably, till now there has been little cross-fertilization between different disciplines exploring resilience measurements despite their shared theoretical foundations [16]. As a consequence, the ability to compare studies and synthesize results remains a challenge. Nevertheless, researchers continuously work toward such approaches and improve the accountability of measures [17,18].
The safe operating space As a framework, social–ecological resilience has a clear link to the conceptual pillars of sustainable development. Both put social, environmental and economic dimensions, at least conceptually, at the same level of importance. This is justified by the notion that social, environmental and economic systems are intimately linked in the Anthropocene: humanity depends on many ecosystem services, such as clean water and air, food production, fuel, and others. Yet, human actions transform ecosystems with consequences for human livelihoods, vulnerability, and security [19]. The Millenium Ecosystem Assessment clearly demonstrated that the majority of our ecosystem services are being degraded and that drastic action, such as restoring natural capital, is required to ensure the long-term continued flow of these services [20]. Moreover, systemic transitions may occur with losses of ecosystem services, such as food and clean water. Often, it can be difficult or impossible to reverse from such transitions, resulting in long-term degraded systems. Even if reversal is possible, recovery of social–ecological systems may be relatively slow [21,22]. It is, therefore, crucial to keep a system within its so-called Safe Operating Space (SOS), delimited by thresholds that bound the favorable state of a particular system [23,24]. Inside the SOS, it is unlikely that known critical thresholds will be crossed [25]. A resilient system tends to remain in its SOS, despite change. Thus, management for resilience includes close attention to the boundaries of SOS and their changes over time [25,26]. SOS has been recently operationalized by Rockstro¨m et al. [27] by defining nine specific boundaries for the Earth. Staying inside the SOS can be seen as a prerequisite or basis for a resilient Earth. In general, SOSs appear to be focused on managing and providing ecosystem services in a sustainable way, rather than at actions directed toward keeping the Earths system in a desirable state. The proposition of planetary boundaries has provoked discussion in the science and policy communities. Recently published commentaries include refinement of the boundaries for phosphorus [28] and nitrogen [29]; the proposal of a potential state shift in the global biosphere [30]; a new approach to define landrelated boundaries using net primary plant production Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 28:108–113
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[31,32]; analyses of the governance implications [33–35]; and critical assessment of the nature of the proposed planetary boundaries [36]. Raworths [37] extension of the planetary boundary concept to include social objectives in the context of sustainability policy and practice has produced a framework that has become known as the ‘Oxfam doughnut’, with an explicit focus on the social justice requirements underpinning sustainability. Recently, the concept of a SOS has been adapted to operationalize management of ecosystems affected by climate change [24]. The central idea is that management of local stressors may enhance ecosystem resilience and consequently reduce the risk of climate change-induced shifts to less desired states that provide fewer ecosystem services. Generally, research is focused on understanding the effect of single stressors [38]. Though, a paradigm shift to understanding how different stressors interact [39–41] requires interdisciplinary or even transdisciplinary science [39]. The shift from management focusing on single factor toward a system approach offers new directions for management in the context of environmental change. A system-oriented approach favors a low-
intervention philosophy: letting nature take its course but ensuring that the stage is effectively set for adaptation, especially in environments close to the threshold levels of the SOS (i.e. adaptive management) [24,26]. Social–ecological resilience is a very promising concept that addresses this approach and provides theoretical background and practical guidance to decision makers and managers. Social–ecological systems, characterized by non-linear behavior and uncertainty, have the capacity to self-organize and to adapt based on past experiences (learning). The growing number of studies on resilience and social–ecological systems has resulted in seven generic principles that are important for enhancing resilience in the world today: first, maintain diversity and redundancy, second, manage connectivity, third, manage slow variables and feedbacks, fourth, foster complex adaptive system (CAS) thinking, fifth, encourage learning and experimentation, six, broaden participation and seventh, promote polycentric governance systems (Table 1) [40,41]. Social–ecological systems are continuously evolving, with ongoing changing social–ecological interactions, constrained and shaped by a given social–ecological setting [42]. The added value of these principles is the new
Table 1 An overview of seven principles that are considered crucial for building resilience in social–ecological systems and how these principles can affect resilience [40]. The examples show how these principles can be practically applied Identified 7 working principles 1. Maintain diversity & redundancy of species, landscape types, actors and institutions. 2. Manage connectivity of resources, species and people. 3. Manage slow variables & feedbacks
4. Foster complex adaptive systems (CAS) thinking
5. Encourage learning by acquiring new information, skills or understanding. 6. Broaden participation by active engagement of stakeholders in projects.
7. Promote polycentric governance systems
How does the principle increase resilience?
How does the principle decrease resilience?
Elements respond differently to change, and different elements of a system compensate for one another functionally. Connectivity provides links to sources of colonization, information and social cohesion after change. Understanding the role of slow variables helps to establish effective governance structures to avoid regime shifts by diminishing the feedbacks. CAS thinking stimulates managers to include interdependence, uncertainty, failure and learning in their approaches.
Higher diversity of elements can increase system complexity and reduce potential for adaptation to change.
[39,42,45]
When the connectivity is high a local change can spread unrestrained through the homogenized system. Detecting crucial slow variables and feedbacks is challenging for managers and hard to get incentive from stakeholders. The abstractedness of CAS thinking can result in business-as-usual approaches or a sense of bewilderment amongst managers instead of adaptive management. Maladaptive learning can lead to strategies and behaviors that threaten the function of entire social–ecological systems. Due to uncertainty stakeholders have different views about the direction and magnitude of resource change in response to management. This disunity can result in a business-as-usual approach. With the complexity of todays environment it is challenging to promote accountability of governing bodies for a successful stewardship of a sustainable social–ecological system.
[41,43,44]
Learning by doing through partnerships with scientists and stakeholders who learn together how to create and maintain sustainable systems. Participation allows individuals in a community to make necessary connections and decisions to selforganize, that boost overall resilience.
Polycentricity provides a governance structure that enables working principles, especially learning and experimentation, participation, connectivity, and diversity and redundancy.
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 28:108–113
Examples
[39,42,43,46]
[41,43,45]
[39,41,43,46]
[43]
[43,45]
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Figure 2
(b)
i ii iii
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Anthropogenic pressure
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A safe operating space is defined as an area delimited by boundaries with respect to thresholds and uncertainty in the response of a system to various pressures. (a) Response of an indicator of the state of a social–ecological system (e.g. income from fisheries) to a stressor (e.g. fishing intensity/market demand) can take different forms, ranging from smooth to hysteretic (e.g. curves i, ii, or iii). The uncertainty in the shape and in the threshold level is accounted for by taking the boundary of the safe operating space at some distance from the best estimate of where the threshold is. (b) An increase in adaptive capacity (I versus II) could keep the social–ecological system within the safe operating space under sometimes unavoidable increased levels of anthropogenic pressures. Note that the particular shape of the boundary curve is for illustrative purposes only, and will vary depending on the interactive effects of pressures. Panel (b) is adapted from Figure 2 in [47].
directions for integrative analysis of relationships between actors and ecosystems across multiple scales [43–45]. For example, centuries of intense fishing have extirpated most apex predators in the Gulf of Maine (United States and Canada) [42], in benefit of a flourishing American lobster monoculture. While the lobster business is a great economic and social success for the Gulf of Maine fishers, the diversity of marine resources harvested in Maine has declined by almost 70%. This loss of diversity makes the social–ecological system extremely vulnerable to systemic collapse (e.g. by diseases or other stressors). The so-called ‘gilded trap’ indicates that positive feedbacks between social drivers (e.g., population growth and market demand) and the value of natural resources can push the system to a critical transition (sensu [46]) (Figure 2). This example illustrates how processes at different scales in a social–ecological system can interact and lead to unforeseen outcomes. Policies based only on local-scale dynamics can lead to wrong judgments about the state of a larger system, and inappropriate actions, and vice versa. Moreover, analyzing and modeling social–ecological systems with simple linear and reductionist dynamics can give a misleading interpretation of how the system works, with substantial implications for management and policy.
Future perspectives In summary, the inevitable complexity of social–ecological systems leads to often unexpected and unpredictable dynamics [14]. The concept of resilience offers a fruitful framework acknowledging the multi-level nature of www.sciencedirect.com
social–ecological systems and the strong interdependence of interactions between factors. Given the unsustainable trajectory the Earth system is in now, the resilience approach emphasizes the need for better understanding of how social–ecological systems can implement change in society to foster sustainability. The abovementioned seven principles provide guidance in how features such as social learning, enabling understanding from big data, and social networks providing innovation and participation across multiple levels, can facilitate adaptation or transformation in response to change [5,47,48]. To do this, the right conditions for implementation of these features have to be identified [10]. As stated by [49] the recognition of the complexity in social–ecological systems, coupled with a growing awareness of the dependence of humanity on ecosystems, requires reform of governance to allow society to take responsibility for the way it uses the Earth [27,50]. From a resilience perspective, change is therefore an inherent feature of social–ecological systems. Change should not be seen as necessarily something negative, but as an opportunity for learning and improvement through for example innovation or reorganization [49,51]. The opportunities are shaped by the conditions and the dynamics of systems at a variety of interlinked organizational, spatial and temporal scales.
Funding This work was supported by Rijkswaterstaat being part of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 28:108–113
112 Sustainability governance and transformation
Conflict of interest None declared.
Acknowledgements We thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback on the content of the paper.
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Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 28:108–113
ScienceDirect How to conceptualize and operationalize resilience in socio-ecological systems? Marjolein Sterk1,2, Ingrid A van de Leemput2 and Edwin THM Peeters2 In various scientific disciplines resilience has become a key concept for theoretical frameworks and more practical goals. The growing interest resulted in multiple definitions of resilience. This paper highlights how and why resilience has become a meaningful concept guiding multiple disciplines to understand and govern social–ecological systems. Moreover, the concept of resilience can be operationalized in complex social–ecological systems that are inherent to change and unpredictable outcomes.
Addresses 1 Faculty of Management, Science and Technology, Open University, P.O. Box 2960, 6401 DL Heerlen, The Netherlands 2 Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, PO Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands Corresponding author: Sterk, Marjolein ([email protected])
SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI, ESCI). In addition, the international policy as well as numerous non-profit organizations have embraced resilience as a mandate to make ambitious efforts to fight climate change and adapt to its effects [2,3]. These observations show that resilience as a concept has gained more and more attention in various academic fields and disciplines [4,5]. Parallel with this development a multitude of resilience definitions and a diversity of applications in particular contexts has developed [5,6,7]. This paper highlights how and why resilience has become a meaningful concept guiding multiple disciplines to understand and govern social– ecological systems. In the following we highlight that discussions about the concept have also resulted in the development of a more comprehensive theoretical framework. Looking beyond the concept of ecological resilience, this framework consists of a set of properties that leads to practical outcomes in social–ecological systems.
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 28:108–113 This review comes from a themed issue on Sustainability governance and transformation Edited by Carolien Kroeze, Harald Vranken, Marjolein Caniels and Dave Huitema
Received 27 March 2017; Received 1 September 2017; Accepted 5 September 2017
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2017.09.003
An exploration of the resilience concept The origin of studies of resilience in ecology dates back to the 1960s and 1970s (see [6,7] for a review of central work on ‘ecological resilience’). The seminal paper of Holling [8] was the first that emphasized the consequences of two different definitions of resilience for ecosystems (Figure 1). The first definition used system Figure 1
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(a) Engineering
resilience
Resilience is a term used in a wide array of contexts, from human health and psychology through economy to informatics and ecology and conservation biology. Its first use in ecological literature was related to the persistence of relationships within an ecosystem after disturbance, and was a measure of the ability of ecosystems to absorb changes of state variables, driving variables, and parameters, and still persists [1]. Over the past decades an explosion of studies dealing with the resilience concept has taken place as is reflected in the rise of the number of scientific publications on resilience and social–ecological systems from 5 per year in 2001 to more than 300 per year in 2016 (ISI Web of Science March 2017, Indexes: Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 28:108–113
resilience
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Schematic representation of (a) engineering resilience, and (b) ecological resilience. The balls in the stability landscapes represent the state of the ecosystem. The black balls represent the stable equilibrium, while the grey and white balls represent a disturbed state. Engineering resilience is the resistance to disturbance and speed of return to the equilibrium, represented by dashed arrows. Ecological resilience is the size of the disturbance that a system can take before it is pushed out of its stable state. www.sciencedirect.com
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resistance to disturbance and speed of return to the equilibrium to measure resilience [9]. This definition was named ‘engineering’ resilience and focused on efficiency, constancy and predictability. These three elements are the core of the contemporarily command-and-control management philosophy, which considers spatial and temporal system dynamics as perturbations to an otherwise stable system. The second definition emphasized the magnitude of disturbances that could be absorbed before a system flips to another stable equilibrium [8]. This is known as ‘ecological’ resilience and focuses on persistence, change and unpredictability — elements embraced by the modern adaptive management philosophy. The latter definition considers system dynamics in time and space as inherent properties of ecosystems. Ecological resilience is determined by the size of the stability domain of an ecosystem. Intuitively this can be thought of as the size of a valley in which a ball resides (Figure 1). As long as the ball is not pushed out of the valley, the system will return to its original state. The ecosystems desired social or economic values as well as management perspective determine the need for a stable equilibrium. Stable states with undesired alternative states have been documented for a great variety of ecosystems like lakes, coral reefs, marine fisheries, benthic systems, wetlands, forests, savannahs, and rangelands [6,10–12]. Importantly, ecosystems comprise interactions between slow and fast processes, and between processes acting at the local, regional and global scale generating variability in the biology and abiotic environment. Those interactions are often non-linear and required for maintaining a high level of biodiversity. Since resilience of an ecosystem is affected by all these facets, resilience at a certain time or at a particular location can affect the resilience later or elsewhere. The size of a stability domain may be altered by slowly changing variables, such as land use, nutrient stocks, soil properties and biomass of long-lived organisms. These changes in ecological resilience may easily go unnoticed. Insights gained from case studies [11,12] imply that, to prevent unwanted state shifts, management best focuses on the gradual environmental changes that underlie resilience, rather than to control the unpredictable disturbances. The definition of ecological resilience described above is a purely ecological concept. However, anthropogenic pressures influence ecosystem stability and resilience. Moreover there is a growing awareness that ecosystems also influence human societies leading people to manage ecosystems for human benefits [13]. In search of sustainable use of natural resources it has become increasingly obvious that ecological and social systems preferably need to be examined and managed as integrated social– ecological systems. In the context of social–ecological systems, resilience is related to the degree to which the system is capable of self-organization, learning and adaptation [14]. Within that approach, resilience is www.sciencedirect.com
defined as the capacity of a social–ecological system to deal with change and meanwhile continue to develop. This broader view of the concept moves beyond viewing humans as external drivers of ecosystem dynamics but it rather looks at how humans are part of, and interact with the Earth system [14,15]. Remarkably, till now there has been little cross-fertilization between different disciplines exploring resilience measurements despite their shared theoretical foundations [16]. As a consequence, the ability to compare studies and synthesize results remains a challenge. Nevertheless, researchers continuously work toward such approaches and improve the accountability of measures [17,18].
The safe operating space As a framework, social–ecological resilience has a clear link to the conceptual pillars of sustainable development. Both put social, environmental and economic dimensions, at least conceptually, at the same level of importance. This is justified by the notion that social, environmental and economic systems are intimately linked in the Anthropocene: humanity depends on many ecosystem services, such as clean water and air, food production, fuel, and others. Yet, human actions transform ecosystems with consequences for human livelihoods, vulnerability, and security [19]. The Millenium Ecosystem Assessment clearly demonstrated that the majority of our ecosystem services are being degraded and that drastic action, such as restoring natural capital, is required to ensure the long-term continued flow of these services [20]. Moreover, systemic transitions may occur with losses of ecosystem services, such as food and clean water. Often, it can be difficult or impossible to reverse from such transitions, resulting in long-term degraded systems. Even if reversal is possible, recovery of social–ecological systems may be relatively slow [21,22]. It is, therefore, crucial to keep a system within its so-called Safe Operating Space (SOS), delimited by thresholds that bound the favorable state of a particular system [23,24]. Inside the SOS, it is unlikely that known critical thresholds will be crossed [25]. A resilient system tends to remain in its SOS, despite change. Thus, management for resilience includes close attention to the boundaries of SOS and their changes over time [25,26]. SOS has been recently operationalized by Rockstro¨m et al. [27] by defining nine specific boundaries for the Earth. Staying inside the SOS can be seen as a prerequisite or basis for a resilient Earth. In general, SOSs appear to be focused on managing and providing ecosystem services in a sustainable way, rather than at actions directed toward keeping the Earths system in a desirable state. The proposition of planetary boundaries has provoked discussion in the science and policy communities. Recently published commentaries include refinement of the boundaries for phosphorus [28] and nitrogen [29]; the proposal of a potential state shift in the global biosphere [30]; a new approach to define landrelated boundaries using net primary plant production Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 28:108–113
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[31,32]; analyses of the governance implications [33–35]; and critical assessment of the nature of the proposed planetary boundaries [36]. Raworths [37] extension of the planetary boundary concept to include social objectives in the context of sustainability policy and practice has produced a framework that has become known as the ‘Oxfam doughnut’, with an explicit focus on the social justice requirements underpinning sustainability. Recently, the concept of a SOS has been adapted to operationalize management of ecosystems affected by climate change [24]. The central idea is that management of local stressors may enhance ecosystem resilience and consequently reduce the risk of climate change-induced shifts to less desired states that provide fewer ecosystem services. Generally, research is focused on understanding the effect of single stressors [38]. Though, a paradigm shift to understanding how different stressors interact [39–41] requires interdisciplinary or even transdisciplinary science [39]. The shift from management focusing on single factor toward a system approach offers new directions for management in the context of environmental change. A system-oriented approach favors a low-
intervention philosophy: letting nature take its course but ensuring that the stage is effectively set for adaptation, especially in environments close to the threshold levels of the SOS (i.e. adaptive management) [24,26]. Social–ecological resilience is a very promising concept that addresses this approach and provides theoretical background and practical guidance to decision makers and managers. Social–ecological systems, characterized by non-linear behavior and uncertainty, have the capacity to self-organize and to adapt based on past experiences (learning). The growing number of studies on resilience and social–ecological systems has resulted in seven generic principles that are important for enhancing resilience in the world today: first, maintain diversity and redundancy, second, manage connectivity, third, manage slow variables and feedbacks, fourth, foster complex adaptive system (CAS) thinking, fifth, encourage learning and experimentation, six, broaden participation and seventh, promote polycentric governance systems (Table 1) [40,41]. Social–ecological systems are continuously evolving, with ongoing changing social–ecological interactions, constrained and shaped by a given social–ecological setting [42]. The added value of these principles is the new
Table 1 An overview of seven principles that are considered crucial for building resilience in social–ecological systems and how these principles can affect resilience [40]. The examples show how these principles can be practically applied Identified 7 working principles 1. Maintain diversity & redundancy of species, landscape types, actors and institutions. 2. Manage connectivity of resources, species and people. 3. Manage slow variables & feedbacks
4. Foster complex adaptive systems (CAS) thinking
5. Encourage learning by acquiring new information, skills or understanding. 6. Broaden participation by active engagement of stakeholders in projects.
7. Promote polycentric governance systems
How does the principle increase resilience?
How does the principle decrease resilience?
Elements respond differently to change, and different elements of a system compensate for one another functionally. Connectivity provides links to sources of colonization, information and social cohesion after change. Understanding the role of slow variables helps to establish effective governance structures to avoid regime shifts by diminishing the feedbacks. CAS thinking stimulates managers to include interdependence, uncertainty, failure and learning in their approaches.
Higher diversity of elements can increase system complexity and reduce potential for adaptation to change.
[39,42,45]
When the connectivity is high a local change can spread unrestrained through the homogenized system. Detecting crucial slow variables and feedbacks is challenging for managers and hard to get incentive from stakeholders. The abstractedness of CAS thinking can result in business-as-usual approaches or a sense of bewilderment amongst managers instead of adaptive management. Maladaptive learning can lead to strategies and behaviors that threaten the function of entire social–ecological systems. Due to uncertainty stakeholders have different views about the direction and magnitude of resource change in response to management. This disunity can result in a business-as-usual approach. With the complexity of todays environment it is challenging to promote accountability of governing bodies for a successful stewardship of a sustainable social–ecological system.
[41,43,44]
Learning by doing through partnerships with scientists and stakeholders who learn together how to create and maintain sustainable systems. Participation allows individuals in a community to make necessary connections and decisions to selforganize, that boost overall resilience.
Polycentricity provides a governance structure that enables working principles, especially learning and experimentation, participation, connectivity, and diversity and redundancy.
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 28:108–113
Examples
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[41,43,45]
[39,41,43,46]
[43]
[43,45]
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Figure 2
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A safe operating space is defined as an area delimited by boundaries with respect to thresholds and uncertainty in the response of a system to various pressures. (a) Response of an indicator of the state of a social–ecological system (e.g. income from fisheries) to a stressor (e.g. fishing intensity/market demand) can take different forms, ranging from smooth to hysteretic (e.g. curves i, ii, or iii). The uncertainty in the shape and in the threshold level is accounted for by taking the boundary of the safe operating space at some distance from the best estimate of where the threshold is. (b) An increase in adaptive capacity (I versus II) could keep the social–ecological system within the safe operating space under sometimes unavoidable increased levels of anthropogenic pressures. Note that the particular shape of the boundary curve is for illustrative purposes only, and will vary depending on the interactive effects of pressures. Panel (b) is adapted from Figure 2 in [47].
directions for integrative analysis of relationships between actors and ecosystems across multiple scales [43–45]. For example, centuries of intense fishing have extirpated most apex predators in the Gulf of Maine (United States and Canada) [42], in benefit of a flourishing American lobster monoculture. While the lobster business is a great economic and social success for the Gulf of Maine fishers, the diversity of marine resources harvested in Maine has declined by almost 70%. This loss of diversity makes the social–ecological system extremely vulnerable to systemic collapse (e.g. by diseases or other stressors). The so-called ‘gilded trap’ indicates that positive feedbacks between social drivers (e.g., population growth and market demand) and the value of natural resources can push the system to a critical transition (sensu [46]) (Figure 2). This example illustrates how processes at different scales in a social–ecological system can interact and lead to unforeseen outcomes. Policies based only on local-scale dynamics can lead to wrong judgments about the state of a larger system, and inappropriate actions, and vice versa. Moreover, analyzing and modeling social–ecological systems with simple linear and reductionist dynamics can give a misleading interpretation of how the system works, with substantial implications for management and policy.
Future perspectives In summary, the inevitable complexity of social–ecological systems leads to often unexpected and unpredictable dynamics [14]. The concept of resilience offers a fruitful framework acknowledging the multi-level nature of www.sciencedirect.com
social–ecological systems and the strong interdependence of interactions between factors. Given the unsustainable trajectory the Earth system is in now, the resilience approach emphasizes the need for better understanding of how social–ecological systems can implement change in society to foster sustainability. The abovementioned seven principles provide guidance in how features such as social learning, enabling understanding from big data, and social networks providing innovation and participation across multiple levels, can facilitate adaptation or transformation in response to change [5,47,48]. To do this, the right conditions for implementation of these features have to be identified [10]. As stated by [49] the recognition of the complexity in social–ecological systems, coupled with a growing awareness of the dependence of humanity on ecosystems, requires reform of governance to allow society to take responsibility for the way it uses the Earth [27,50]. From a resilience perspective, change is therefore an inherent feature of social–ecological systems. Change should not be seen as necessarily something negative, but as an opportunity for learning and improvement through for example innovation or reorganization [49,51]. The opportunities are shaped by the conditions and the dynamics of systems at a variety of interlinked organizational, spatial and temporal scales.
Funding This work was supported by Rijkswaterstaat being part of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 28:108–113
112 Sustainability governance and transformation
Conflict of interest None declared.
Acknowledgements We thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback on the content of the paper.
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