Foundations of Ecological Resilience

Foundations of Ecological Resilience PDF Author: Lance H. Gunderson
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1610911334
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description
Ecological resilience provides a theoretical foundation for understanding how complex systems adapt to and recover from localized disturbances like hurricanes, fires, pest outbreaks, and floods, as well as large-scale perturbations such as climate change. Ecologists have developed resilience theory over the past three decades in an effort to explain surprising and nonlinear dynamics of complex adaptive systems. Resilience theory is especially important to environmental scientists for its role in underpinning adaptive management approaches to ecosystem and resource management. Foundations of Ecological Resilience is a collection of the most important articles on the subject of ecological resilience—those writings that have defined and developed basic concepts in the field and help explain its importance and meaning for scientists and researchers. The book’s three sections cover articles that have shaped or defined the concepts and theories of resilience, including key papers that broke new conceptual ground and contributed novel ideas to the field; examples that demonstrate ecological resilience in a range of ecosystems; and articles that present practical methods for understanding and managing nonlinear ecosystem dynamics. Foundations of Ecological Resilience is an important contribution to our collective understanding of resilience and an invaluable resource for students and scholars in ecology, wildlife ecology, conservation biology, sustainability, environmental science, public policy, and related fields.

Foundations of Ecological Resilience

Foundations of Ecological Resilience PDF Author: Lance H. Gunderson
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1610911334
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 496

Get Book

Book Description
Ecological resilience provides a theoretical foundation for understanding how complex systems adapt to and recover from localized disturbances like hurricanes, fires, pest outbreaks, and floods, as well as large-scale perturbations such as climate change. Ecologists have developed resilience theory over the past three decades in an effort to explain surprising and nonlinear dynamics of complex adaptive systems. Resilience theory is especially important to environmental scientists for its role in underpinning adaptive management approaches to ecosystem and resource management. Foundations of Ecological Resilience is a collection of the most important articles on the subject of ecological resilience—those writings that have defined and developed basic concepts in the field and help explain its importance and meaning for scientists and researchers. The book’s three sections cover articles that have shaped or defined the concepts and theories of resilience, including key papers that broke new conceptual ground and contributed novel ideas to the field; examples that demonstrate ecological resilience in a range of ecosystems; and articles that present practical methods for understanding and managing nonlinear ecosystem dynamics. Foundations of Ecological Resilience is an important contribution to our collective understanding of resilience and an invaluable resource for students and scholars in ecology, wildlife ecology, conservation biology, sustainability, environmental science, public policy, and related fields.

Social-Ecological Resilience and Law

Social-Ecological Resilience and Law PDF Author: Ahjond S. Garmestani
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231536356
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
Environmental law envisions ecological systems as existing in an equilibrium state, reinforcing a rigid legal framework unable to absorb rapid environmental changes and innovations in sustainability. For the past four decades, "resilience theory," which embraces uncertainty and nonlinear dynamics in complex adaptive systems, has provided a robust, invaluable foundation for sound environmental management. Reforming American law to incorporate this knowledge is the key to sustainability. This volume features top legal and resilience scholars speaking on resilience theory and its legal applications to climate change, biodiversity, national parks, and water law.

Spatial Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems

Spatial Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems PDF Author: Graeme S. Cumming
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400703074
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Spatial Resilience is a new and exciting area of interdisciplinary research. It focuses on the influence of spatial variation – including such things as spatial location, context, connectivity, and dispersal – on the resilience of complex systems, and on the roles that resilience and self-organization play in generating spatial variation. Prof. Cumming provides a readable introduction and a first comprehensive synthesis covering the core concepts and applications of spatial resilience to the study of social-ecological systems. The book follows a trajectory from concepts through models, methods, and case study analysis before revisiting the central problems in the further conceptual development of the field. In the process, the author ranges from the movements of lions in northern Zimbabwe to the urban jungles of Europe, and from the collapse of past societies to the social impacts of modern conflict. The many case studies and examples discussed in the book show how the concept of spatial resilience can generate valuable insights into the spatial dynamics of social-ecological systems and contribute to solving some of the most pressing problems of our time. Although it has been written primarily for students, this book will provide fascinating reading for interdisciplinary scientists at all career stages as well as for the interested public. "Graeme Cumming, central in the development of resilience thinking and theory, has produced a wonderful book on spatial resilience, the first ever on this topic. The book will become a shining star, a classic in the explosion of new ideas and approaches to studying and understanding social-ecological systems." Carl Folke, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden

An Ecosystem Services Approach to Assessing the Impacts of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico

An Ecosystem Services Approach to Assessing the Impacts of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309288487
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
As the Gulf of Mexico recovers from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, natural resource managers face the challenge of understanding the impacts of the spill and setting priorities for restoration work. The full value of losses resulting from the spill cannot be captured, however, without consideration of changes in ecosystem services-the benefits delivered to society through natural processes. An Ecosystem Services Approach to Assessing the Impacts of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico discusses the benefits and challenges associated with using an ecosystem services approach to damage assessment, describing potential impacts of response technologies, exploring the role of resilience, and offering suggestions for areas of future research. This report illustrates how this approach might be applied to coastal wetlands, fisheries, marine mammals, and the deep sea-each of which provide key ecosystem services in the Gulf-and identifies substantial differences among these case studies. The report also discusses the suite of technologies used in the spill response, including burning, skimming, and chemical dispersants, and their possible long-term impacts on ecosystem services.

Social-Ecological Resilience and Sustainability

Social-Ecological Resilience and Sustainability PDF Author: Shelley Ross Saxer
Publisher: Aspen Publishing
ISBN: 1454898356
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 717

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Book Description
Social-Ecological Resilience and Sustainability by Shelley Ross Saxer and Jonathan Rosenbloom is designed to help students understand and address new, changing, and complex economic, environmental, and social systems. This book introduces resilience and sustainability as analytical frameworks and illustrates how these concepts apply in various contexts: water, food, shelter/land use, energy, natural resources, pollution, disaster law, and climate change. The first two chapters (Part I) provide students with a conceptual foundation to explore the interdisciplinary nature of resilience and sustainability and the meanings of, complexities embedded in, and the overlap and differences between these frameworks. Each of the remaining eight chapters (Part II) views resilience and sustainability in a specific law and policy context. Strategically placed throughout Part II, the authors describe eight useful tools — “Strategies to Facilitate Implementation”—to help identify, assess, integrate, or utilize resilience and sustainability as analytical frameworks. Key Features: A two-part approach that first provides students with a conceptual foundation and then allows students to view resilience and sustainability in eight law and policy contexts (described above) Numerous graphics throughout to illustrate concepts, depict events described, and otherwise enliven the content Case studies that examine human decisions that led to unsustainable and non-resilient systems and societies New and innovative ways to explain complex systems and in turn rethink traditional notions of law and policy

Ecological Resilience

Ecological Resilience PDF Author: Kimberly Etingoff
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1771883111
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
This book presents the latest research on resilience strategies around the world. Research such as this is necessary to create new ideas and to evaluate established ones in an effort to make communities more adaptable and to increase people's survival and quality of life while living with the reality of climate change. The book offers definitions of resilience and various ways of measuring it, since resilience is still a concept in transition. It also describes general strategies for increasing communities’ resilience at multiple levels, then dives into specific dimensions of resilience, tying it to energy infrastructure and systems and public health.

Resilience and the Behavior of Large-Scale Systems

Resilience and the Behavior of Large-Scale Systems PDF Author: Lance H. Gunderson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Resilience and the Behavior of Large-Scale Systems examines theories of resilience and change, offering readers a thorough understanding of how the properties of ecological resilience and human adaptability interact in complex, regional-scale systems. The book addresses the theoretical concepts of resilience and stability in large-scale ecosystems as well as the empirical application of those concepts in a diverse set of cases. In addition, it discusses the practical implications of the new theoretical approaches and their role in the sustainability of human-modified ecosystems.

Resilience in Ecology and Urban Design

Resilience in Ecology and Urban Design PDF Author: S.T.A. Pickett
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400753411
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
The contributors to this volume propose strategies of urgent and vital importance that aim to make today’s urban environments more resilient. Resilience, the ability of complex systems to adapt to changing conditions, is a key frontier in ecological research and is especially relevant in creative urban design, as urban areas exemplify complex systems. With something approaching half of the world’s population now residing in coastal urban zones, many of which are vulnerable both to floods originating inland and rising sea levels, making urban areas more robust in the face of environmental threats must be a policy ambition of the highest priority. The complexity of urban areas results from their spatial heterogeneity, their intertwined material and energy fluxes, and the integration of social and natural processes. All of these features can be altered by intentional planning and design. The complex, integrated suite of urban structures and processes together affect the adaptive resilience of urban systems, but also presupposes that planners can intervene in positive ways. As examples accumulate of linkage between sustainability and building/landscape design, such as the Shanghai Chemical Industrial Park and Toronto’s Lower Don River area, this book unites the ideas, data, and insights of ecologists and related scientists with those of urban designers. It aims to integrate a formerly atomized dialog to help both disciplines promote urban resilience.

Principles for Building Resilience

Principles for Building Resilience PDF Author: Reinette Biggs
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110708265X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Reflecting the very latest research, this book provides an in-depth review of the role of resilience in the management of social-ecological systems and the ecosystem services they provide. Leaders in the field outline seven principles for building resilience in social-ecological systems, examining how these can be applied to advance sustainability.

Engineering Within Ecological Constraints

Engineering Within Ecological Constraints PDF Author: National Academy of Engineering
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 030917645X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
Engineering within Ecological Constraints presents a rare dialogue between engineers and environmental scientists as they consider the many technical as well as social and legal challenges of ecologically sensitive engineering. The volume looks at the concepts of scale, resilience, and chaos as they apply to the points where the ecological life support system of nature interacts with the technological life support system created by humankind. Among the questions addressed are: What are the implications of differences between ecological and engineering concepts of efficiency and stability? How can engineering solutions to immediate problems be made compatible with long-term ecological concerns? How can we transfer ecological principles to economic systems? The book also includes important case studies on such topics as water management in southern Florida and California and oil exploration in rain forests. From its conceptual discussions to the practical experience reflected in case studies, this volume will be important to policymakers, practitioners, researchers, educators, and students in the fields of engineering, environmental science, and environmental policy.