Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing WorldIncreasingly, cracks are appearing in the capacity of communities, ecosystems, and landscapes to provide the goods and services that sustain our planet's well-being. The response from most quarters has been for "more of the same" that created the situation in the first place: more control, more intensification, and greater efficiency. "Resilience thinking" offers a different way of understanding the world and a new approach to managing resources. It embraces human and natural systems as complex entities continually adapting through cycles of change, and seeks to understand the qualities of a system that must be maintained or enhanced in order to achieve sustainability. It explains why greater efficiency by itself cannot solve resource problems and offers a constructive alternative that opens up options rather than closing them down. In Resilience Thinking, scientist Brian Walker and science writer David Salt present an accessible introduction to the emerging paradigm of resilience. The book arose out of appeals from colleagues in science and industry for a plainly written account of what resilience is all about and how a resilience approach differs from current practices. Rather than complicated theory, the book offers a conceptual overview along with five case studies of resilience thinking in the real world. It is an engaging and important work for anyone interested in managing risk in a complex world. |
Other editions - View all
Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World Brian Walker,David Salt No preview available - 2006 |
Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World Brian Walker,David Salt No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
absorb disturbance adaptive cycles agricultural back loop basin of attraction capacity Caribbean Carpenter cattails Cogworld complex adaptive systems components conservation phase coral reefs created crisis crossed a threshold decline drought dynamics ecological systems economic ecosys ecosystem services efficiency environmental equilibrium eutrophication Everglades example farm farmers feedbacks fish flooded meadows Florida fore loop forest functional groups future global Goulburn-Broken Catchment groundwater happen HelgeƄ HelgeƄ River Holling human important increase irrigation kilometers Kristianstad Kristianstads Vattenrike Lac du Flambeau lake land landscape levels Millennium Ecosystem Assessment move natural resource networks NHLD nutrients optimal options panarchy percent phosphorus population problems production regime shift region release phase reorganization phase Resilience Alliance resilience approach resilience thinking resilient world resource management response diversity sawgrass scales scenarios sediment shocks slow variables social social-ecological systems soil species sustainability system's resilience things tion transformation trees understanding vulnerable water table wetland