resilience management and governance b walker

7/28/2019 Resilience Management and Governance B Walker

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RESILIENCE MANAGEMENT ANDGOVERNANCE:

A basis for sustainable development in

social-ecological systems

Brian WalkerCSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, and

The Resilience Alliance

www.resalliance.org


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Two paradigms for use and management ofnatural resources:

- Variants of MSY

- Resilience management and governance


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a focus on central tendencies rather than probabilitydistributions and extreme events.

Four misconceptions (flawed MSY assumptions)underlying most development policies

belief that problems from different sectors do notinteract.

expectation that change will be incremental and linear.

an objective of some optimal state of the system thatwill deliver MSY.

(there is no sustainable optimal state of an ecosystem,or of the world. It is an unattainable goal)


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The second paradigm

Resilience Management and Governance

Two underlying assumptions

Social-ecological systems:1. behave as complex adaptive systems2. exist as hierarchies of linked adaptive

cycles at multiple scales (panarchies)


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Coupled systems of people and nature aredynamic, social-ecological systems (SESs) thatbehave as complex adaptive systems

- self-organizing

- non-linear with multiple attractors- emergent behaviour (cannot be predictedfrom their parts)

- cross-scale interactions

No-one is in charge


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Adaptive cyclesecosystems, societies and social-ecologicalsystems exhibit characteristic 4-phase cycles


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a

r K

r: growth / exploitation

resources readily available

K: conservation

things change

slowly; resources

locked up

W: releasethings change very rapidly;

locked up resources suddenlyreleased

a: re-organization/renewalsystem boundaries tenuous;

innovations are possible


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a

r

K


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PROPOSITION

Because the world consists of hierarchies ofmulti-scale social-ecological systems (SESs)behaving as complex adaptive systems,

sustainable use and development rests on threeSES capacities:

resilience, adaptability and transformability


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Resilience

The capacity of a system to absorbdisturbance and re-organise whileundergoing change so as to stillretainessentially the same function, structure,identity and feedbacks

Four key aspects:

LatitudeResistancePrecariousnessPanarchy


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L

R

Pr


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R1

R2

R3

R4

Focal scale

Finer scale

Coarser scale

R4

Panarchy (Pa) - influence of the states of the system at scales above andbelow the focal scale, by impacting the system directly (from the finerscale) or by changing the stability landscape (from the coarser scale).


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Latitude (L): the maximum amount a system can bechanged before losing its ability to recover (before

crossing a threshold which, if breached, makesrecovery difficult or impossible)

Resistance (R):ease or difficulty of changing the

system

Precariousness (Pr): current trajectory - how closethe system is to a threshold

Panarchy (Pa):influence on thefocal scale from scalesabove and below


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Adaptability

The capacity of actors in the system (people) tomanage resilience :

(i) change the stability landscape - move

thresholds or make it easier/harder to change thesystem, and

(ii) control the trajectory of the system avoidcrossing a threshold, or engineer such a crossing


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TransformabilityThe capacity to become (or create) afundamentally different system when ecological,social and/or economic conditions make theexisting system untenable.


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So what does all this mean in thereal world?


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KEY POINTS

1) The effectiveness of management orgovernance interventions depends onwhere a system is in the adaptive cycle

2) Ecosystems, social systems and social-ecological systems have non-linear

dynamics with threshold effects


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Alternate states in lakes


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Alternate states in mulga rangelands in Australia


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Examples of alternate states in terrestrial ecosystems

Ecosystem Locations Alternatestate 1

Alternatestate 2

Fastvariable

Slowvariable

Externaldrivers

Savannas Australia

Namibia

Perennialgrassland

Annualgrassland

Leafbiomass

Soil quality

Perennialgrass

Weather,Overgrazing

Savanna

Woodlands

Tanzania

Botswana

Grasslands Woodlands Grass Woody

vegetation

Drought,

Disease,Fires,Herbivores

Woodlands Chile

Patagonia

Shrubs Bare soilAnnuals

Weeds

Annuals Shrubs OvergrazingFirewood

harvesting

Steppe -Tundra

Beringia(RussiaandAlaska)

GrassMegafauna

MossShrubsNomegafauna

Grass MossShrubs

Hunting


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Examples of alternate states in aquatic ecosystems

Ecosystem Locations Alternatestate 1

Alternatestate 2

Fast variable Slow variable Externaldrivers

Coralreefs

Caribbean Coral Algae Algae Nutrients NutrientinputOverfishingHurricanes

Coastalwater

Worldwide

Florida Bay

ClearwaterSeagrassFish

EutrophicFew fish

Speciescomposition

PhosphorusNitrogen

NutrientinputTemperatureSalinity

Lakes USA

Denmark

Sweden

ClearwaterLake-grassFish

EutrophicFew fish

Speciescomposition

PhosphorusNitrogen

Nutrientinput

NewZealand

Sweden

ClearwaterLake-grass

Eutrophic Speciescomposition

? Nutrients?Waterlevels?

England Turbidity ClearwaterLake-grass

Suspended solids Fish density Fish removal

Swampsand

Marshes

USA Sawgrass CattailAlgae

Speciescomposition

Phosphorus Nutrientinput

Fires, FrostsDroughts


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( )

Supply of ecosystem services as a function of ecosystem state

B - lake services (fish, recreation) as a function of phosphate in mudA - rangeland services (wool production from grazing) as a function of shrubsVc - the critical, threshold levels of mud phosphate and shrubs, demarcating aflip from one attractor to another.


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What determines resilience?

General-Diversity-Modularity

-Tight feedbacks-?

Specific- resilience of what to what?

e.g. resilience of rangeland production tograzing/rainfall shocks

Li htl G d Sit


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Lightly Grazed Site(site 5)

photo by Jill Landsberg


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abundance of grass species in an ungrazedrangeland in Australia

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Rank

Relativeabundance(%)


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Plant attributes determining ecosystem production and

water relations (available data)

height

mature plant biomass

specific leaf area

longevity

leaf litter quality


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0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Relativeabu

ndance(%)

Rank

Functional similarities between dominant and minorspecies


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- Ecosystem performance is promoted byhigh functional diversity (complementarity)

- Resilience is promoted by high responsediversity (in rainforests, coral reefs, lakes,rangelands)( cf Elmqvist etal; Response diversity, ecosystem changeand resilience. Frontiers in Ecology and Environment)

Eje X del nicho Eje X del nicho


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What determines Adaptability?

leadershiptrustlearning (knowledge generators and knowledgecarriers)

ie social capital

- overlapping institutions (Ostrom and others)

- human capital (skills, education, health)- financial capital

- natural capital


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Resilience and adaptabilityper seare

not necessarily desirable.- the Hindu caste system (Gadgil and Malhotra 1983).

- Stalins regime

- desertified and economically impoverished parts ofthe Sahel

It is sometimes necessary to have the capacity totransform, to become a fundamentally different kindof system


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What determines Transformability?

- cross-scale awareness and responsiveness- a propensity for experimentation and novelty(rewarded, not penalised)

- lack of subsidies, compensation (incentives notto change)- ?


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Resilienceanalysis

leads to two importantsets of information :

The crucial (slow) driving variables that exhibitthreshold effects

The processes that determine how these variableschange, and the positions of their critical thresholds

This set of drivers and their determinants leads to acorresponding set of management and policy actionsfocussed on resilience

CONCLUSIONS


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Resilience managementdepends onadaptability, and consists of:

1. Managing the stability landscape

(increasing the resilience of desirable basinsand decreasing it for undesirable ones)

2. Managing the systems trajectory

(keeping the system within a desirable basinor trying to get it from an undesirable into adesirable one)


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Resiliencegovernanceis aboutincreasing adaptability, andunderstanding and guiding the evolutionof rules


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The main messages:Adaptive cycles and panarchy effects are important

Multi-stable states (alternate basins of attraction) arethe norm, not the exception

The basis of sustainability lies in three, related system

properties resilience, adaptability and transformability

Policy and management should focus on the attributes ofsystems that determine these three properties

Trying to hold a system in some perceived optimal state(command-and-control management)reduces bothresilience and adaptability (and we dont yet know enoughabout transformability)


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What would a sustainably developing SES look like?

- promote and sustain diversity - biological, landscape, economic(multiple use of resources), social- restricted human control of ecological variability- modular (connected systems susceptible to shocks)- tight feedbacks- policy focus on slow variables associated with thresholds- emphasis on learning, social networks, locally developed rules- mix of common and private property, overlapping access rights- strong penalties (public shaming) for cheaters- overlapping institutions (hierarchically),- unpriced ecosystem services included in development proposals

- low resistance to change; innovation and experiments encouraged- strong awareness and response to cross-scale influences


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resilience management and governance b walker

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