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2012 | Buch

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Resilience Practice

Building Capacity to Absorb Disturbance and Maintain Function

verfasst von: Brian Walker, David Salt

Verlag: Island Press/Center for Resource Economics

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik"

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Über dieses Buch

Resilience Thinking, published by Island Press in 2006, addressed an essential question: As the natural systems that sustain us are subjected to shock after shock, how much can they take and still deliver the services we need from them? Resilience Practice takes the notion of resilience one step further, applying resilience ideas to real-world situations and exploring how systems can be managed to promote and sustain resilience.

Resilience Practice will help people with an interest in the "coping capacity" of systems—from farms and catchments to regions and nations—to better understand how resilience thinking can be put into practice. It offers an easy-to-read but scientifically robust guide through the real-world application of the concept of resilience and is a must read for anyone concerned with the management of systems at any scale.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. Preparing for Practice: The Essence of Resilience Thinking

Abstract

There are any number of ways of putting resilience science into practice, and it needs to be said at the outset that following strict recipes and prescriptions simply isn’t appropriate. Working with resilience requires you to constantly reflect on what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. And once an assessment of resilience is done, you are encouraged to go back and reexamine it, expand on it, and then adapt accordingly. Our focus in most of this book is on the resilience of social-ecological systems (linked systems of humans and nature). Resilience is a dynamic property of such a system, and managing for it requires a dynamic and adaptive approach.

Brian Walker, David Salt

Case Study 1. Thresholds on the Range:

A Safe Operating Space for Grazing Enterprises

Abstract

Rangelands are places where humans graze animals for meat and fiber. At their simplest, they can be pictured as expanses of grassy woodlands or grasslands with shrubs, managed by pastoralists who graze animals on them. They are a foreign world to your average city slicker, but rangelands supply an important proportion of the world’s protein (especially to the developing world). They have also experienced significant degradation over many decades.

Brian Walker, David Salt

2. Describing the System

Abstract

Aresilience assessment begins by bringing together the stakeholders—the people with an interest or a stake in the system. Many people find the term stakeholders a bit repellent because it arose out of management speak, but we can’t think of a better one. The first stage is to work with these stakeholders to determine what the components are that make up their system and how they are connected.

Brian Walker, David Salt

Case Study 2. From Taos to Bali and Sri Lanka:

Traditional Irrigation at the Crossroads

Abstract

At first glance the acequia farmers in New Mexico and the subak rice growers of Bali don’t have much in common beyond the fact that they both use irrigation in their farming enterprise (see images 3 and 4). They produce different crops in dramatically different environments using different traditions. However, dig a little deeper and it’s clear there are many similarities underlying their resilience, a property that has seen them weather many disturbances and yet continue to operate successfully over centuries. Also in common is a growing vulnerability to modern growth and globalization.

Brian Walker, David Salt

3. Assessing Resilience

Abstract

Having developed an agreed-on description of the system, the next step is to assess its resilience. The process here is not feeding your description into some formula. Resilience is not a single number or a result. It’s an emergent property that applies in different ways and in the different domains that make up your system. It is contextual and it depends on which part of the system you’re looking at and what questions you’re asking.

Brian Walker, David Salt

Case Study 3. Assessing Resilience for “the Plan”:

The Namoi and Central West Catchment Management Authorities

Abstract

In many places around the world resilience is appearing in policy and mission statements. In New South Wales (NSW) in Australia, for example, the goal for natural resource management is “resilient, ecologically sustainable landscapes functioning effectively at all scales and supporting the environmental, economic, social and cultural values of communities” (NSW Natural Resources Commission, 2011).

Brian Walker, David Salt

4. Managing Resilience

Abstract

Given what you’ve learned about the system, given your assessment of real or suspected thresholds, the system’s general coping ability, and capacity for transformation—so what? What should you do about it, and what options are available to meet these concerns?

Brian Walker, David Salt

Case Study 4. People and Pen Shells, Marine Parks and Rules:

Why Governance Is Central to the Resilience of Coastal Fisheries

Abstract

There are somewhere between 50 and 150 million people in the world who make their living through small-scale fisheries operating in coastal waters. They catch fish and harvest other marine resources, using all kinds of innovative methods. Unfortunately, despite their ingenuity, many of these operations are suffering from “the tragedy of the commons.” The tragedy is the overuse of a common resource leading to its collapse.* The question is, How does a fishery agree to take no more than its fair share? What is a fair share, anyway?

Brian Walker, David Salt

5. Practicing Resilience in Different Ways

Abstract

Depending on who you talk to, resilience can mean a number of things. As discussed in the introductory chapter, the four main origins of the concept lie in the fields of engineering, ecology/biology, psychology, and defense/security. Organizational resilience is now also a growing field, and it draws on the ideas developed by the other four. Resilience in economics is another area of growing interest. The literature on resilience in all these fields is large and growing.

Brian Walker, David Salt

Case Study 5. Out of the Swamp:

Lessons from Big Wetlands

Abstract

The swampy wetlands of the world have played important roles in human history. The presence of water made them favored places for animals and people alike, and they have long histories of human use and manipulation. And it’s the manipulation that is of interest from a resilience perspective, since it has invariably resulted in unintended secondary effects. We begin our swamp tour with a discussion of two major wetland systems in the developing world: the Okavango Delta in Botswana and Tonle Sap in Cambodia (see images 9 and 10). Both are very valuable assets for the countries involved, and both depend on the continued flow of water from countries upstream.

Brian Walker, David Salt

6. A Resilient World

Abstract

What does resilience mean when applied at the planetary scale? Our planet as a global system has changed quite a bit over the last ten thousand years, but when viewed on geological time scales it has been very stable during this period, a time known as the Holocene. Indeed, despite some changes it’s had the same identity.

Brian Walker, David Salt

Backmatter

Titel: Resilience Practice
verfasst von: Brian Walker
David Salt
Verlag: Island Press/Center for Resource Economics
Electronic ISBN: 978-1-61091-231-0
Print ISBN: 978-1-59726-355-9
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-231-0