C. S. Holling

Lance H. Gunderson

Creating institutions to meet the challenge of sustainability is arguably the most important task confronting society; it is also dauntingly complex. Ecological, economic, and social elements all play a role, but despite ongoing efforts, researchers have yet to succeed in integrating the various disciplines in a way that gives adequate representation to the insights of each.Panarchy, a term devised to describe evolving hierarchical systems with multiple interrelated elements, offers an important new framework for understanding and resolving this dilemma. Panarchy is the structure in which systems, including those of nature (e.g., forests) and of humans (e.g., capitalism), as well as combined human-natural systems (e.g., institutions that govern natural resource use such as the Forest Service), are interlinked in continual adaptive cycles of growth, accumulation, restructuring, and renewal. These transformational cycles take place at scales ranging from a drop of water to the biosphere, over periods from days to geologic epochs. By understanding these cycles and their scales, researchers can identify the points at which a system is capable of accepting positive change, and can use those leverage points to foster resilience and sustainability within the system.This volume brings together leading thinkers on the subject -- including Fikret Berkes, Buz Brock, Steve Carpenter, Carl Folke, Lance Gunderson, C.S. Holling, Don Ludwig, Karl-Goran Maler, Charles Perrings, Marten Scheffer, Brian Walker, and Frances Westley -- to develop and examine the concept of panarchy and to consider how it can be applied to human, natural, and human-natural systems. Throughout, contributors seek to identify adaptive approaches to management that recognize uncertainty and encourage innovation while fostering resilience.The book is a fundamental new development in a widely acclaimed line of inquiry. It represents the first step in integrating disciplinary knowledge for the adaptive management of human-natural systems across widely divergent scales, and offers an important base of knowledge from which institutions for adaptive management can be developed. It will be an invaluable source of ideas and understanding for students, researchers, and professionals involved with ecology, conservation biology, ecological economics, environmental policy, or related fields.

Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems

Panarchy

This book develops an adaptive approach to environmental impact assessment and management and is based on a study initiated by a workshop convened in early 1974 by SCOPE (Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment). CS Holling discusses the nature and behavior of ecological systems and its issues, limitations, and potential of environmental assessment. Further, he discusses how we can incorporate impact assessment studies with actual environmental planning and decision making.Crawford Holling received his B.A. and M.Sc. at the University of Toronto (1952) and his Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia (1957). He worked in the laboratories of the Department of the Environment, Government of Canada. Since then, he has been, at various times, Professor and Director of the Institute of Resource Ecology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, and Director of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Vienna, Austria. He now occupies the Arthur R. Marshall Jr. Chair in Ecological Sciences at the University of Florida and has launched a comparative study of the structure and dynamics of ecosystems.

Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management

Craig Reece Allen

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

Charles Perrings

Carl Folke

Karl-Goran Maler

Bengt-Owe Jansson

The book reports key findings of a research program in which economists and ecologists considered the consequences of biodiversity loss.

C. S. Holling

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