resilience management and governance b walker
TRANSCRIPT
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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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