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Ecological resilience

In ecology, resilience is the capacity of an ecosystem to respond to a perturbation or disturbance by resisting damage and subsequently recovering. 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 the introduction of exotic plant or animal species. Disturbances of sufficient magnitude or duration can profoundly affect an ecosystem and may force an ecosystem to reach a threshold beyond which a different regime of processes and structures predominates.[2] When such thresholds are associated with a critical or bifurcation point, these regime shifts may also be referred to as critical transitions.[3]

For other uses, see Resilience (disambiguation).

Human activities that adversely affect ecological resilience such as reduction of biodiversity, exploitation of natural resources, pollution, land use, and anthropogenic climate change are increasingly causing regime shifts in ecosystems, often to less desirable and degraded conditions.[2][4] Interdisciplinary discourse on resilience now includes consideration of the interactions of humans and ecosystems via socio-ecological systems, and the need for shift from the maximum sustainable yield paradigm to environmental resource management and ecosystem management, which aim to build ecological resilience through "resilience analysis, adaptive resource management, and adaptive governance".[2][5] Ecological resilience has inspired other fields and continues to challenge the way they interpret resilience, e.g. supply chain resilience.

Observed resilience within specific ecosystems drives management practice. When resilience is observed to be low, or impact seems to be reaching the threshold, management response can be to alter human behavior to result in less adverse impact to the ecosystem.

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Ecosystem resilience impacts upon the way that development is permitted/environmental decision making is undertaken, similar to the way that existing ecosystem health impacts upon what development is permitted. For instance, remnant vegetation in the states of Queensland and New South Wales are classified in terms of ecosystem health and abundance. Any impact that development has upon threatened ecosystems must consider the health and resilience of these ecosystems. This is governed by the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 in New South Wales and the Vegetation Management Act 1999 in Queensland.[31]

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International level initiatives aim at improving socio-ecological resilience worldwide through the cooperation and contributions of scientific and other experts. An example of such an initiative is the [32] whose objective is "to assess the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and the scientific basis for action needed to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of those systems and their contribution to human well-being". Similarly, the United Nations Environment Programme [33] aim is "to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Scientific research associated with resilience is beginning to play a role in influencing policy-making and subsequent environmental decision making.


This occurs in a number of ways:

(NSW) [34] – A key goal of the Environmental Assessment procedure is to determine whether proposed development will have a significant impact upon ecosystems.

Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979

(NSW) [35] – Pollution control is dependent upon keeping levels of pollutants emitted by industrial and other human activities below levels which would be harmful to the environment and its ecosystems. Environmental protection licenses are administered to maintain the environmental objectives of the POEO Act and breaches of license conditions can attract heavy penalties and in some cases criminal convictions.[36]

Protection of the Environment (Operations) Act 1997

(NSW) [37] – This Act seeks to protect threatened species while balancing it with development.

Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995

Ecological resilience and the thresholds by which resilience is defined are closely interrelated in the way that they influence environmental policy-making, legislation and subsequently environmental management. The ability of ecosystems to recover from certain levels of environmental impact is not explicitly noted in legislation, however, because of ecosystem resilience, some levels of environmental impact associated with development are made permissible by environmental policy-making and ensuing legislation.


Some examples of the consideration of ecosystem resilience within legislation include:

History[edit]

The theoretical basis for many of the ideas central to climate resilience have actually existed since the 1960s. Originally an idea defined for strictly ecological systems, resilience in ecology was initially outlined by C.S. Holling as the capacity for ecological systems and relationships within those systems to persist and absorb changes to "state variables, driving variables, and parameters."[38] This definition helped form the foundation for the notion of ecological equilibrium: the idea that the behavior of natural ecosystems is dictated by a homeostatic drive towards some stable set point. Under this school of thought (which maintained quite a dominant status during this time period), ecosystems were perceived to respond to disturbances largely through negative feedback systems – if there is a change, the ecosystem would act to mitigate that change as much as possible and attempt to return to its prior state.


As greater amounts of scientific research in ecological adaptation and natural resource management was conducted, it became clear that oftentimes, natural systems were subjected to dynamic, transient behaviors that changed how they reacted to significant changes in state variables: rather than work back towards a predetermined equilibrium, the absorbed change was harnessed to establish a new baseline to operate under. Rather than minimize imposed changes, ecosystems could integrate and manage those changes, and use them to fuel the evolution of novel characteristics. This new perspective of resilience as a concept that inherently works synergistically with elements of uncertainty and entropy first began to facilitate changes in the field of adaptive management and environmental resources, through work whose basis was built by Holling and colleagues yet again.[39][40]


By the mid 1970s, resilience began gaining momentum as an idea in anthropology, culture theory, and other social sciences. There was significant work in these relatively non-traditional fields that helped facilitate the evolution of the resilience perspective as a whole. Part of the reason resilience began moving away from an equilibrium-centric view and towards a more flexible, malleable description of social-ecological systems was due to work such as that of Andrew Vayda and Bonnie McCay in the field of social anthropology, where more modern versions of resilience were deployed to challenge traditional ideals of cultural dynamics.[41]

Hulme, M. (2009). “Why we Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity". Cambridge University Press.

Lee, M. (2005) “EU Environmental Law: Challenges, Change and Decisions Making”. Hart. 26.

Maclean K, Cuthill M, Ross H. (2013). Six attributes of social resilience. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. (online first)

Pearce, D.W. (1993). “Blueprint 3: Measuring Sustainable Development”. .

Earthscan

Andrew Zolli; Ann Marie Healy (2013). Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back. Simon & Schuster.  978-1451683813.

ISBN

Resilience Alliance — a research network that focuses on social-ecological resilience

Resilience Alliance

Stockholm Resilience Centre — an international centre that advances trans disciplinary research for governance of social-ecological systems with a special emphasis on resilience — the ability to deal with change and continue to develop

Stockholm Resilience Centre