Resilience Thinking: Preparing for the Unknown

Nathan Albritton

Background

• Earth is dynamic– Change is inevitable

• Scientific inquiry has allowed us to better understand our world

• However, there will always be surprises– The world is inherently unknowable

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"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."

-William Shakespeare

“To know that you do not know is the best. To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease.”

-Lao-Tzu

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." -Socrates

What is Resilience?

• The ability of a system to perform its desired function after a shock

• Equilibrium Resilience – Maintain steady-state

• Engineering Resilience– Time for system to return to normal

• Ecosystem Resilience– How much a system can be disturbed

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Earth in Balance?

Are Stability and Balance Good Things?

• Two key (and faulty) assumptions:

– There is an ideal stable state or situation that we have to maintain

– We know better than nature

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Seawalls and Sand Loss(Pilkey et. al., 1996)

(Star Wars)

History of Resilience Thinking

• Ecologist C.S. ‘Buzz’ Holling ‘discovered’ the notion of resilience in the 1970s

• Major outbreak of spruce budworm– Destroyed balsam fir trees in Eastern Canada’s

mature forests; yet left young trees alone– Six major outbreaks since 1700s

• Canadian government reacted with pesticide spraying– Caused destruction of predator / budworm

relationship– Whole forests on verge of outbreak– Locked-in to using increased levels of pesticides

• Budworm outbreaks acted as natural rejuvenator of spruce-fir forests

5Spruce Budworm

(Natural Resources Canada)

Spruce-Fir Forest(Wikimedia Commons)

Resilience Thinking

• Resilience Thinking is based on two premises:

– Humans and nature are part of a strongly couple and coevolving “social-ecological” system

– Systems do not respond to change in a linear, predictable fashion

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Adaptive Cycle

• Growth or exploitation (r)– New opportunities and available resources

exploited– Pioneers/opportunists successful

• Conservation (K)– Energy stored, material accumulates– Increasing dependence on existing

structure– Increasingly stable/rigid, loss of flexibility

• Collapse or release (omega)– Resources released– Connections break

• Reorganization (alpha)– Destruction opens up new options– Novelty, invention, experimentation

possible (i.e. evolution)

7Panarchy

(resalliance.org)

Adaptive Cycle(resalliance.org)

Panarchy

• Panarchy – A hierarchical set of linked/nested adaptive cycles, and their cross scale effects of different levels of a system

• Smaller and faster adaptive cycles are areas for experimentation

• Playing / experimenting with larger and slower adaptive cycles can have deep, long-term effects (e.g. anthropogenic climate change)

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Scales and Panarchy (Ecology and Society)

Basins of Attraction

• Regions in which a system tends toremain

• More than one basin of attraction for any given system

• Focuses on regime shifts and tipping points, which can tip a system into another state which is difficult or impossible to recover from

• “How much shock can a system absorb before it transforms into something fundamentally different?” (Folke, 2009)

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Ball and Cup Heuristic of System Stability

(Environmental Governance)

Stability Landscapes

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Stability Landscapes

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Dealing with Climate Change

• Holocene has been a period of flourishing human civilization• Temperature unlikely to stay the same even if no anthropogenic effects• Impossible to predict future• However, we can learn, adapt, and evolve through experimentation in

smaller, faster scales in the panarchy11

Temperature Fluctuations over Human History (SeedMagazine.com)

Dealing with Climate Change (cont’d)

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• Climate change is a potential large-scale source of change in many ecosystems– Great potential to change stability landscapes

• Resilience Thinking can be used to help systems maintain essential functions - guided transition– Humans are part of nature, evolving along with it

• Will require adaptive form of governance– Experimentation at local level– No ‘one-size fits all’ solutions– Increased participation; not just rely on “experts”– Increased information flow – Bolstered social networks / social capital

Key Take-Aways

• Resilience Thinking is a form of systems thinking– Everything is connected

• Resilience Thinking embraces uncertainty and accepts risk as inevitable

• Resilience is not just about absorbing disturbance– Also about the capability to self-organize and the capacity to learn, adapt and transform

• Resilience Thinking encourages a greater awareness of complex systems, their interacting parts, and the ability to cope with changes without the need to accurately predict what a change will bring

• Embrace change, nothing is static– The key is not equilibrium but fluctuation and change– There is no sustainable optimal state, change will happen– Life is full of surprises; Embrace change and dance with it, no-one's in control

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Further Reading

• Stockholm Resilience Centre (http://www.stockholmresilience.org/)

• Resilience Alliance (http://www.resalliance.org/)

• Ecology and Society (www.ecologyandsociety.org)

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References

• Carpenter, SR, Folke, C., Scheffer, M., & Westley, F. (2009). Resilience: accounting for the noncomputable. Ecology & society, 14(1). Retrieved from http://su.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:432532

• Carpenter, Steve, Walker, B., Anderies, J. M., & Abel, N. (2001). From Metaphor to Measurement: Resilience of What to What? Ecosystems, 4(8), 765–781. doi:10.1007/s10021-001-0045-9

• Folke, C. (2009, December). How much disturbance can a system withstand ? With roots in ecology and complexity science , Resilience Thinking offers new ways to turn crises into catalysts for innovation . Seed Magazine.com, 40–42.

• Holling, C. S. (1973). Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 4, 1–23. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.hpu.edu/stable/info/2096802

• Lin, B. B., & Petersen, B. (2013). Resilience , Regime Shifts , and Guided Transition under Climate Change : Examining the Practical Difficulties of Managing Continually Changing. Ecology and Society, 18(1).

• Rockström, J., & Steffen, W. (2009). Planetary boundaries: exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society, 14(2). Retrieved from http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/main.html

• Walker, BH, Anderies, J., Kinzig, A., & Ryan, P. (2006). Exploring resilience in social-ecological systems through comparative studies and theory development: introduction to the special issue. Ecology and Society, 11(1). Retrieved from http://www.ibcperu.org/doc/isis/8587.pdf

• Walker, Brian, & Holling, C. (2004). Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability in Social--ecological Systems. Ecology and Society, 9(2). Retrieved from http://profesores.usfq.edu.ec/fdelgado/Ecologia Humana/articulosdigitales/Walker.pdf