Resilience thinking: a renewed system approach for sustainability science

This paper examines the contribution of resilience thinking for social-ecological systems (SESs) in understanding sustainability and the need to preserve natural resources in the face of external perturbations. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis, the literature survey shows the increased...

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Main Authors: Xu, L., Marinova, Dora, Guo, X.
Format: Journal Article
Published: Springer-Verlag Tokyo 2014
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/38523
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author Xu, L.
Marinova, Dora
Guo, X.
author_facet Xu, L.
Marinova, Dora
Guo, X.
author_sort Xu, L.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This paper examines the contribution of resilience thinking for social-ecological systems (SESs) in understanding sustainability and the need to preserve natural resources in the face of external perturbations. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis, the literature survey shows the increased importance of resilience and its integration into the interdisciplinary area of sustainability studies. By exploring the links between resilience and sustainability, the analysis finds that these two concepts share some similarities and also highlight the differences. The discussion of resilience indicators, measuring criteria, models and management issues reveals how resilience contributes to sustainability science and in what ways the concept can be used to measure resilience in terms of sustainability. Most existing studies emphasise the ecological aspects of resilience, but only by including human activities in the modelling can resilience thinking inform sustainability in a meaningful way. The paper concludes defining issues requiring further investigation, such as identifying and managing the drivers and key elements of resilience in SESs, exploring the dynamics between critical variables of SESs and the system feedbacks to external perturbations, as well as evaluating policies and engaging stakeholders for building resilience.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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publishDate 2014
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-385232017-09-13T14:18:22Z Resilience thinking: a renewed system approach for sustainability science Xu, L. Marinova, Dora Guo, X. This paper examines the contribution of resilience thinking for social-ecological systems (SESs) in understanding sustainability and the need to preserve natural resources in the face of external perturbations. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis, the literature survey shows the increased importance of resilience and its integration into the interdisciplinary area of sustainability studies. By exploring the links between resilience and sustainability, the analysis finds that these two concepts share some similarities and also highlight the differences. The discussion of resilience indicators, measuring criteria, models and management issues reveals how resilience contributes to sustainability science and in what ways the concept can be used to measure resilience in terms of sustainability. Most existing studies emphasise the ecological aspects of resilience, but only by including human activities in the modelling can resilience thinking inform sustainability in a meaningful way. The paper concludes defining issues requiring further investigation, such as identifying and managing the drivers and key elements of resilience in SESs, exploring the dynamics between critical variables of SESs and the system feedbacks to external perturbations, as well as evaluating policies and engaging stakeholders for building resilience. 2014 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/38523 10.1007/s11625-014-0274-4 Springer-Verlag Tokyo restricted
spellingShingle Xu, L.
Marinova, Dora
Guo, X.
Resilience thinking: a renewed system approach for sustainability science
title Resilience thinking: a renewed system approach for sustainability science
title_full Resilience thinking: a renewed system approach for sustainability science
title_fullStr Resilience thinking: a renewed system approach for sustainability science
title_full_unstemmed Resilience thinking: a renewed system approach for sustainability science
title_short Resilience thinking: a renewed system approach for sustainability science
title_sort resilience thinking: a renewed system approach for sustainability science
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/38523