The Resilience Alliance is a multidisciplinary research group that explores the dynamics of complex social-ecological systems (SESs) in order to discover foundations for sustainability.  Established in 1999, the RA is supported by an international network of member institutions that includes universities, government, and non-government agencies.  It has two main activities - a Science Program and a Communications and Outreach Program

The RA's Science program integrates theory development with a set of case studies that together support continued breakthroughs in our understanding of the dynamics of systems of people and nature.  The Communications and Outreach program aims to build capacity among a global community of researchers, practitioners, stakeholders, and policy makers, through a variety of knowledge-sharing and network-development initiatives.

• We are strongly multidisciplinary. With core strength in ecological sciences but growing capacity in the social sciences, our program has evolved to focus on linked social-ecological systems (SESs). Fundamental to the RA's approach is the understanding that complex environmental systems must be addressed in an integrative manner, combining social, economic, and ecological factors.
• Through our members' extensive involvement in Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management (AEAM), coupled with a set of regional case studies, the RA collectively has decades of experience engaging stakeholders involved in resource management planning processes.
• The set of case-studies is closely linked with theory development.
• The Alliance is small (membership cap of 20 institutions) and flexible, allowing new ideas to permeate quickly. Formal connections to other organizations working on related issues extend the network's reach.
• Our work fortifies a paradigm shift in natural resource management from top-down (command-and-control) optimization to resilience and self-organization.
• The RA is at the forefront of exploring complex dynamics in social-ecological systems and maintains a research focus on how to influence/manage resilience, adaptability, and transformability in such systems. For an overview of what is meant by these terms, see Walker et al (2004) in Ecology and Society.

OUR RESEARCH AGENDA

Envisioning Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems

How does resilience manifest itself in different systems?

What are the properties of systems that make them more or less resilient?

What are the attributes of SESs that cause them to gain or lose resilience and adaptive capacity?

How do we measure resilience?

How do we recover resilience and adaptability in systems where they are being eroded, and enhance them in systems undergoing change?

What are the relationships between resilience, adaptability and transformability?

To guide our thinking and research we use an evolving model of a social-ecological system. An early conceptual version of this model (Fig 1), developed to help structure discussion and ideas, has been refined and adapted for different purposes. Fig 2 is the most recent conceptualization (see Anderies et al (2004) in Ecology and Society), aimed at analyzing the dynamics of such systems with a focus on the role of institutions. These “models” are of course merely abstractions to help organize thinking and analysis.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Implications of this conceptual model

1. The minimum components of a social-ecological system are: the resource base (ecosystem), a set of resource users, a governance structure (public infrastructure providers in Fig 2), a set of institutions (rules, social networks), physical public infrastructure, and a disturbance regime.

2. The dynamics of such an SES are characteristically non-linear and likely to exhibit regime shifts.

3. The capacity of a SES to re-organize without a fundamental change in structure or function (without a regime shift) is limited - a measure of the system’s resilience. The aim of resilience analysis is to understand where these limits are, how to keep the system away from them, and how to influence the positions of the limits (how to increase the size of the domains of desired system configurations).

4. The temporal pattern of dynamics that such systems exhibit is invariably some version of the four-phase, adaptive cycle, as described in Gunderson and Holling (2002). Such cycles occur in nested hierarchies at a number of scales, characteristic for the system concerned, and the interactions amongst these nested cycles constitutes a “panarchy”.

5. Attempts at sustainable development of an SES that are based on consideration of only a part of this system will provide only partial solutions, and are almost certain to fail in their objectives.

What follows is an outline of a research agenda to develop the understanding and information required for a resilience analysis of an SES.  Our aim is the development of guidelines and principles that will enable those involved to envision the resilience of the system, and to identify appropriate points of intervention for governance, investment and management.

We are in the process of establishing a new program of research, building on the work over the past few years.  Some existing work will continue, in the form of on-going research by members in a number of regional SESs.  The kinds of resource-use systems include:

• Lakes used for fishing and/or recreation
• Marine systems
• Semi-arid rangelands used for livestock production
• Irrigated agricultural systems
• Forest regions involving conservation, harvesting and/or conversion to agriculture
• Subsistence agriculture based on mixed systems of livestock and cultivation
• Urban systems
• Ancient and historical systems - A deep time analysis of resilience

For the past three years the RA has been involved in a series of comparisons of some 15 case studies in such regional SES, involving two workshops in which the regions were compared in terms of their resilience.  The results of this work will appear in 2005 as a special edition of the journal Ecology and Society.

The next phase of RA research will consist of two main streams - I. a set of four main research projects, and, II. an associated cross-cutting program of theory development.

1. WATER, AGRICULTURE, LAND-USE AND RESILIENCE

The aim of the project is to increase our understanding of the role of water in sustaining resilience in social and ecological systems dominated by agricultural land use and located in regions of water related vulnerabilities. A particular focus will be on agrarian systems in need of transformation, through various management related innovations. Research will focus on the dynamic relations between land use, water flows and ecological functions, spatial landscape dynamics, and feedback loops.

2. RESILIENCE AND LONG-TERM HUMAN WELL-BEING IN REGIONS WITH RESERVES

The aim is to explore how regional resilience of social-ecological systems is influenced by the nature of the reserve networks they contain, and how the resilience of the reserve networks is influenced by the state and dynamics of the matrix in which they occur.  Initially, we will outline the range of formal and informal reserve networks that exist within regions, coupled with their relative (temporal and spatial) scales of influence. Here we are interested in whether nested subsets of regions (defined by the scales over which key processes – ecological and social – operate) allow us to more clearly define the appropriate scales at which to view and manage the system. Key questions include: exploring how reserves and non-reserves interact to influence regional resilience; exploring how the nature of boundaries (which can witness positive and negative flows in both directions) can influence regional resilience; and exploring the purported role that ‘refuges’ can play in rebuilding the system after collapse.

The initial approach is to develop a conceptual model of a system with at least 2 scales (the region, and the reserve scales), at least 2 sectors (production interest, and a conservation interest) and involving at least 2 different kinds of potential regime shifts.

3. THE RESILIENCE OF MARINE SYSTEMS

The Marine Resilience Program seeks to apply the resilience approach to marine social-ecological systems, building on the RA's traditional emphasis on terrestrial and lake systems. Marine science has been undergoing a dramatic paradigm-shift in recent years, with increased recognition of the role of people in the dynamics of all marine ecosystems. Fisheries science and marine ecology are beginning to blend, as the former becomes more experimental and the latter increases in spatial and temporal scale. The distinction between applied and basic marine science is becoming much less distinct.

The Marine Resilience group was initiated in 2004. An initial workshop held at the Beijer Institute, Stockholm in October 2004 focused on the dynamics of three marine linked social-ecological systems (coral reefs, kelp beds and coastal fisheries).  A second meeting is scheduled for Cairns, Australia in August 2005, where the nature and content of the program will be developed.

4. URBAN RESILIENCE

In the coming decades, the world’s rapid urbanization will be one of the greatest challenges to the resilience of human welfare and the global environment.  These transforming cities represent the engines of economic growth for the developing world and, in all regions, will continue to be the centers of innovation, culture, and the arts.  These same cities, however, are the loci of increasing poverty, pollution, disease, political instability, and social inequality.  The transformation of surrounding land due to urban expansion and urban dwellers’ ever-increasing demand for energy, food, goods, and other resources is behind the degradation of local and regional environments, threatening basic ecosystem services and global biodiversity.  The RA proposes to initiate a select set of case studies where developing thresholds and areas vulnerable to collapse will be identified.  Social networks and emerging institutions will be examined as well as elements of a classical ecological approach.

1.  A new theory program is under development (led by Steve Carpenter, Carl Folke and others).  The thrust is to gain a better understanding of transformations in SESs that have been subject to great disturbance, or that for some other reason are changing radically.  The backloop is the most mysterious and unpredictable phase of change in complex systems, yet also the phase where the most exciting, influential and novel events happen.  Briefly, the program will have five interlocking elements, each involving several RA researchers and nodes.  These elements are:

• Tools for Backloop Theory:  development of minimal models and exploration of their behavior and ability to explain observed backloop change.  Activities will include modeling studies, comparisons of models with data from the case studies, and "laboratory" experiments that test hypotheses by studying the behavior of people playing simulated backloop games.
• Comparative Dynamics of Backloops:  Case-study comparisons of backloops in social-ecological systems.  This will focus on regional systems where we have already established networks, or the seeds of strong networks exist.
• Role of Diversity in Backloops:  Case-study comparisons of the role of diversity in backloops of social, political, economic and ecological systems, combined with key theoretical investigations.  This builds on the important findings from the present program of the different roles played by functional diversity and response diversity.
• Global Experiments in Backloop Dynamics:  Web exercises using games (computer, board or card games) to explore aspects of backloops with participants around the world, using the networking capacity of Ecology and Society and the Resilience Alliance Portal.
• Open-Source Backloop Library:  A seed bed of tools for teaching and understanding resilience and backloops, housed on the RA Portal.

The project includes innovative theory and modeling, carefully-chosen case studies, and outreach through the global experiments in backloop dynamics.

2. An on-going project on thresholds and regime shifts. It began as a joint initiative with the Santa Fe Institute's "Robustness" project with an evolving database of threshold examples, available on the RA website. The aim is to develop a typology of thresholds in ecosystems and social-ecological systems. The database will shortly be of sufficient size to warrant initial analyses aimed at a typology of thresholds and regime shifts.

Integration of I. and II.

Analyses of resilience, adaptability and transformability in SESs for the development of guidelines and principles for interventions in regard to (i) governance (including institutions and policy), (ii) investment, and (iii) management, aimed at enhancing long-term net social benefit.A variety of methods and approaches are being used to tackle this research agenda. They fall broadly into:

• Formal models;
• Participatory approaches to stakeholder-driven analysis of particular regions (case studies), using informal group analyses, development of agent-based models, Bayesian Belief Networks, use of historical profile analysis, scenario development, vision analysis and other techniques;
• Comparative analysis of case studies;
• Controlled experiments in the laboratory and the field on interactions between individuals, institutions, and their common resources. 

COMMUNICATION AND EXTENSION PROGRAM

The primary goal of the RA Communication and Extension Program is to effectively disseminate the growing body of knowledge surrounding resilience and adaptability in social-ecological systems, while at the same time catalyzing learning through discussion and debate within a global community of researchers and practitioners.  To effect this goal four main elements make up the RA’s Communication and Extension program:

I.  Communications 

A Communications Committee (Chaired by Allyson Quinlan) has the task of developing a communications program, building on and extending the existing development and use of the RA Portal.  A new activity will be tracking the impact of the RA program on others, to assist us in improving our effectiveness

A primary activity will be the initiation of an open source RA library of resilience analysis and teaching tools.  It will also encompass all other educational elements, including the RA short courses and teaching material.  An initial course involving "capacity building" for young professionals was run in 2000 at the National Centre for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, focused on resilience theory, model formulation and analysis, tools and applications of adaptive environmental management and stakeholder analysis. Further courses have been run, tailored to different groups, and the intention is to develop modules that will enable material for courses for various kinds of groups to be easily assembled.

Through funding from the Packard Foundation and Christiansen Fund, two versions of the RA workbook will be undertaken in 2005: The Scientists version (leader Brian Walker) and the much larger and more demanding  Practitioners Workbook (Leaders Ann Kinzig and Lance Gunderson).

The various elements of the Communication Program are strongly interconnected and build upon the RA’s successful internet presence, both with the online journal, Ecology and Society, and the Resilience Alliance Portal.

The RA portal provides content management for a growing library of resources relating to resilience research (e.g., documents, bibliography, website links, multimedia files, models, project information, databases, etc.) and facilitates community participation and access to such materials. Highlights include: a publications list containing over 150 references to key papers, an open database of threshold examples in the literature, an active weblog, and project information with links to public surveys.

Ecology and Society is a peer-reviewed, electronic journal of integrative science and fundamental policy research, published by the Resilience Alliance. Since its launch in 1997 (as "Conservation Ecology"), the journal has established a reputable presence and is included in the Institute for Scientific Information's Science Citation Index Expanded, Alerting Services, and Current Contents/Agriculture, Biology, and Environmental Sciences. The journal is also abstracted by BIOSIS, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, and Public Affairs Information Service.

COLLABORATION

As part of an extended network, RA members are involved in cross-cutting activities with many other research programs - The Beijer International Institute for Ecological Economics, The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, The Santa Fe Institute’s program on Robustness, The Stockholm Environment Institute, to name some.  Individual members maintain a wide array of collaborating research partners.

The RA is comprised of up to 20 institutional (node) members, each of which is entitled to sit on the Board of Directors, which provides the institutional governance. The Board of Directors relies on an advisory Board of Science for direction and guidance. The Board of Science elects the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Ecology and Society, determines editorial policy for the journal, and oversees the quality of the science program. An Executive Director (Phil Taylor) oversees the administrative structure of the Alliance. A Science Program Director (Brian Walker) co-ordinates the Science Program, including all activities funded under major grants and a Communications Program Director (Allyson Quinlan) co-ordinates the Communications and Extension Program.  An Education Committee oversees the education program.

Berkes, F., J. Colding and C. Folke (eds.) 2003. Navigating Social-Ecological Systems: Building Resilience for Complexity and Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK.

Carpenter, S.R., B.H. Walker, J.M. Anderies and N. Abel. 2001. From Metaphor to Measurement: Resilience of What to What? Ecosystems 4: 765-781.

Folke, C., S. Carpenter, T. Elmqvist, L. Gunderson, C.S. Holling and B. Walker. 2002. Resilience and Sustainable Development: Building Adaptive Capacity in a World of Transformations. Ambio 31:437-440.

Folke, C., S. Carpenter, B. Walker, M. Scheffer, T. Elmqvist, L. Gunderson and C.S. Holling.  2005.  Regime shifts, resilience and biodiversity in ecosystem management.  Annual Review of Ecology Evolution and Systematics 35:  557-581.

Gunderson, L and Holling C.S., editors. 2002. Panarchy: Understanding transformations in human and natural systems. Island Press, Washington, D.C., USA.

Holling, C.S. 2001. Understanding the complexity of economic, social and ecological systems. Ecosystems 4: 390-405

Scheffer, M., S. Carpenter, J. Foley, C. Folke and B. Walker. 2001. Stochastic events can trigger large state shifts in ecosystems with reduced resilience. Nature 413: 591-596.

Walker, B., S. Carpenter, J. Anderies, N. Abel, G. Cumming, M. Janssen, L. Lebel, J. Norberg, G. D. Peterson, and R. Pritchard. 2002. Resilience management in social-ecological systems: a working hypothesis for a participatory approach. Conservation Ecology 6(1): 14. [online] URL: http://www.consecol.org/vol6/iss1/art14

Walker, B., C. S. Holling, S. R. Carpenter, and A. Kinzig. 2004. Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social–ecological systems. Ecology and Society 9(2): 5. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5/

REFERENCES

Anderies, J. M., M. A. Janssen, and E. Ostrom. 2004. A framework to analyze the robustness of social-ecological systems from an institutional perspective. Ecology and Society 9(1): 18. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss1/art18/

Gunderson, L and Holling C.S., editors. 2002. Panarchy: Understanding transformations in human and natural systems. Island Press, Washington, D.C., USA.

Walker, B., C. S. Holling, S. R. Carpenter, and A. Kinzig. 2004. Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social–ecological systems. Ecology and Society 9(2): 5. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5/