From resilience thinking to Resilience Planning: Lessons from practice

Quality and risk management frameworks for biosolids: An assessment of current international practice

Biosolids, a product of wastewater treatment, provide a valuable resource, but to optimize the use of this resource it is necessary to manage risks posed to public health and the environment. Key requirements include identifying contaminant sources and providing barriers to ensure containment and treatment while maintaining the viability and value of biosolids products. Responsibility for managing biosolids is the remit of many stakeholders but primarily it rests with private and public wastewater facilities. The global variabilities in the way biosolids resources are acknowledged, applied, and managed are substantial. For example, some countries are increasing incineration because of their ability to remove contaminants while others have experienced a proportional decrease in incineration dependent on industrial resources or regarding resource recovery costs and needs. Some jurisdictions focus on energy recovery and others on land application. A risk management framework is a tool that may provide a suitable holistic approach to biosolids management. With this focus, current instruments in practice globally to manage biosolids were assessed for the degree to which they have adopted a risk management framework. To form a basis for this assessment a set of criteria was established by concept mapping several internationally recognized standards. Guidelines for a range of developed and developing countries were then assessed against these criteria. That process enabled the identification of which current practices were holistic in terms of applying biosolids risk management principles from production to end-use. Through this process, risk management gaps and vulnerabilities were identified. The results reveal that the incorporation of risk standards into risk management frameworks around the world is variable for the presence of risk criteria and the scale of detail provided. Contaminant concentrations need perspective within the changing risk landscape for stakeholders and the environment while jointly the opportunities and contaminant challenges require solutions that balance risks.

Quantitative simulation and verification of the tourism economic resilience in urban agglomerations

The concept of tourism economic resilience emphasizes the sustainable development level of tourism economy under uncertainty and risk. Focusing on urban agglomerations, this study aims to describe how the tourism economic resilience is developing, explore whether the resilience level is enhanced with urban agglomerations and whether spatial elements affect resilience levels. With the combination of the aggregation and diffusion effects and crowding effects of regional development, the study uses a combination of dynamic evaluation method, spatial kernel density, and mathematical models of urban agglomeration development to quantitatively analyze the spatiotemporal dynamic evolution of tourism economic resilience from 2006 to 2019, simulates and verifies its development patterns. The conclusions show that: (1) The tourism economic resilience in urban agglomerations is closely related to regional development and prosperity; (2) The development of tourism economic resilience also follows the spatial economic development pattern which moves towards equilibrium in aggregation process; (3) The tourism economic resilience of urban agglomerations has a fluctuation climbing node, generally presents as a wave-like upward trend with fluctuations and stages; (4) The evolutionary trend of tourism economic resilience in urban agglomerations presents as a slight wave-like upward curve that changes with time and co-opetition.

Coastal Land Use Management Methodologies under Pressure from Climate Change and Population Growth

Throughout history, humans living in the coastal area constantly adapt to the natural environment and create a changing environment. The rapid coastal development occurred in the mid-19th century and peaks in the mid-20th century, which was a common process in most industrialized areas. With increasing population growth and urban sprawl, many coastal lowlands are unprecedently vulnerable to climate change impacts such as sea level rise, increasing extreme storm events, and coastal flooding. Under the influence of urban revitalization and conservation, the landward shoreline movement accelerated and coastal land shrank, accompanied by community retreat. This research focuses on the importance of incorporating an understanding of the changing coastal land-ocean interaction into adaptive management strategies by illustrating the relationship of land use change, social-economic development, and climate change. Typical coastal changes in Connecticut were selected: New Haven Harbor reflects a dramatic seaward land accretion under industrial and transportation development, New London downtown waterfront reveals a trend of building retreat under industrial and commercial transformation and coastal hazard, New London Ocean Beach indicates how overdeveloped coastal low-lying community fully retreat after a natural disaster, and Jordan Cove barrier island shows a highly dynamic coastal land change and proactive management strategy. The results reveal that to cope with a constantly changing shoreline and the challenges of climate change, a resilient management process must incorporate a cycle of learning, experimenting, and creating with the goal of developing new solutions that are able to deal with our ever-changing environment.

Mainstreaming resilience analytics: 10 years after the Fukushima disaster

Multiple events over the last decade, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrate a global lack of preparedness for low probability but high consequence events. Following the evaluation of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, these authors called for a change from a risk-oriented approach to a resilience-focused framework for managing such disruptions. Over the past five years, the field of resilience analytics has conceptualized further resilience frameworks within the context of infrastructure development; however, the practice of resilience planning is still lagging behind the theories developed in the literature. In this article, we consider the lessons learned from the Fukushima nuclear accident through the lens of newly developed resilience analytics and the ongoing COVID-19-related challenges. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2022;18:1551-1554. © 2022 SETAC. This article has been contributed to by U.S. Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.

A Safe Governance Space for Humanity: Necessary Conditions for the Governance of Global Catastrophic Risks

The world faces a multiplicity of global catastrophic risks (GCRs), whose functionality as individual and collective complex adaptive networks (CANs) poses unique problems for governance in a world that itself comprises an intricately interlinked set of CANs. Here we examine necessary conditions for new approaches to governance that consider the known properties of CANs-especially that small changes in one part of the system can cascade and amplify throughout the system and that the system as a whole can also undergo rapid, dramatic, and often unpredictable change with little or no warning.

How resilient are localities planning for climate change? An evaluation of 50 plans in the United States

Resilience has increasingly become the principal management priority and planning goal for cities, especially for climate change adaptation. Yet few studies have evaluated whether and how well resilience are integrated into climate change adaptation planning. In this study, we first conceptualized resilience as five key elements (i.e., system, collaboration, uncertainty, coping capacity, and adaptive capacity) and developed a coding protocol based on these key elements. We then used it to evaluate a sample of 50 climate change plans in the United States (US) that has a major adaptation component. We found that the concept of resilience has not been adequately embedded in US climate change plans and that the predominant notions of resilience has limited influence on how well plans integrate resilience. We also found that standalone adaptation plans outperform hybrid plans in addressing uncertainty and fostering systems thinking. Ultimately, major barriers exist in translating the concept of resilience into climate change planning practice. We further offer implications for cities to more effectively plan for climate resilience.

Degrowth in Practice: Developing an Ecological Habitus within Permaculture Entrepreneurship

The literature on degrowth has suffered from only engaging with normative ideas. More recently the degrowth debate has started moving from a normative perspective to close the wide gap that has existed between normative ideas and is analysing how to link ideas to the institutional and cultural environment that shapes practices. To address this challenge, we draw on the work of Pierre Bourdieu in order to examine transformations in the habitus and forms of capital of those who decide to move into sustainable entrepreneurship through permaculture in Brazil. Permaculture represents a vibrant alternative to industrial food production and addresses fundamental contemporary social problems, such as increasing inequalities, climate change and the loss of biodiversity. The article explores the challenges faced and respective responses of those who decide to change their relationships with nature and society by becoming permaculture entrepreneurs (PEs). The paper shows that, when entering the permaculture universe, individuals start critically examining their values and ways of living, which leads to a disengagement from dominant patterns of behaviour and social expectations in order to pursue sustainable lifestyles and thereby develop an ecological habitus.

The grey - green spectrum: A review of coastal protection interventions

In the face of uncertainties around coastal management and climate change, coastal engineering interventions need to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Nature-based solutions and other non-traditional, integrated interventions are gaining traction. However, system-based views are not yet embedded into coastal management strategies. Moreover, the differences in coastal interventions, ranging from hard ('grey') to nature-based ('green') infrastructure remain understudied. In coastal management it is therefore challenging to work with the grey-green spectrum of interventions with clarity and focus, and to produce results that can be evaluated. The objective of this paper was to examine whether there is a common understanding of: the characteristics and differences between grey and green infrastructure, where interventions sit on this spectrum, and the resilience of grey versus green infrastructure. We conducted an integrative literature review of the grey-green spectrum of coastal infrastructure. We examined 105 coastal protection case studies and expanded the double-insurance framework to ensure an integrative approach, looking at both external and internal factors of resilience. Our review showed that external factors are typically used to characterise the grey-green spectrum. However, although useful, they do not facilitate a holistic comparison of alternative interventions. The additional consideration of internal factors (response diversity, multifunctionality, modularity and adaptive, participatory governance) bridges this gap. The review showed that dikes, reefs, saltmarshes, sand nourishment and dunes span a wider segment of the grey-green spectrum than they are generally categorised in. Furthermore, resilient solutions for adaptation are unlikely to be exclusively engineered or natural, but tend to be a mix of the two at different spatial scales (micro, meso, macro and mega). Our review therefore suggests that coastal planners benefit from a more diverse range of options when they consider the incorporation of grey and green interventions in the context of each spatial scale. We propose that internal resilience should be accounted for when infrastructure options are comparatively evaluated. This consideration brings attention to the ways in which the grey-hybrid-green spectrum of infrastructure enhances value for people.

Potato Farming Systems from a Social-Ecological Perspective: Identifying Key Points to Increase Resilience in a High Andean Productive Landscape

Social-ecological resilience (SER), understood as the capacity to prevent, react to, and mitigate crises that affect social-ecological systems, provides an integrative framework to analyze agricultural challenges. Based on this approach, key points that affect the sustainability of productive landscapes are addressed and evaluated, providing a baseline from which to improve farming systems at different scales. Hence, the aim of this work is to assess SER in potato crops in the Nariño area in southwestern Colombia, a region where strategies to increase resilience must be implemented. Following the methodology proposed by the UNU-IAS (2014), potato producers’ thoughts and perceptions were evaluated by implementing eleven workshops in seven municipalities. Five main integrative factors (twenty indicators of resilience) were examined and scored during the assessment: (1) governance and social equity, (2) livelihood and well-being, (3) knowledge and innovation, (4) landscape diversity and ecosystem protection, and (5) agrobiodiversity and sustainable natural resource management. Participants evaluated each indicator from 1 to 5 (1 being low performance and 5 extremely good performance). The results were calculated and averaged. Prior to the assessment, participatory techniques to generate collective reflection on resilience and landscape management were performed. The results showed that farmers rated SER resilience from low to moderate (from 2.5 to 3.2), with “well-being” (2.5) and “knowledge and innovation” (2.7) being the worst-rated factors. The data evidence deficiencies in all the indicators examined. Issues that constrain SER are related to the lack of capacity to create bio-industries, small livelihood portfolios, pollution, loss of natural areas (which impacts biodiversity and ecosystem services), and the loss of ancestral knowledge. The producers requested, as short-term actions, increases in technical assistance (to promote innovation and business initiatives) and farm diversification programs (to take advantage of their native potatoes diversity). They also agreed on the need for associative figures to enhance capacity-building among producers. These findings confirm deficiencies that minimize the sustainability of this system. Actions that impact positively almost all indicators are required to improve not only productivity but also the population’s well-being.

Behind the scenes: Scientific networks driving the operationalization of the Social-Ecological System framework

The analytical framework of Social-Ecological Systems (SES) has been endorsed worldwide because of its ability to describe the complex feedback relationships between social and ecological subsystems. The framework promotes multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, with the expectation that studies will be carried out through groups and collaborative networks via the application of mixed research methods. In this study, we conducted a systematic review of the scientific literature to understand whether the operationalization of the SES framework has been achieved in this way. For this, we used the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions and the Scopus database. Based on the results, there is wide methodological plurality, although there are few studies that have opted for mixed methods that capture the complexity of an SES. In terms of scientific networks, we found that the community is composed mainly of consolidated groups of scientists from the Global North in which authors-researchers with betweenness centrality roles were identified, who connect the entire network, reaching the Global South, where peripheral groups, which are barely consolidated and develop their studies, mostly in their own regions, prevail.

Disaster Recovery Practices and Resilience Building in Greece

This paper aims to elaborate on the notion of resilience by analysing the historical long-term impact of recovery processes that follow catastrophic events. In this respect, the approach reveals the importance of two major dimensions of disaster recovery practices: the establishment of an effective resilience milieu in conjunction with the generation of safety knowledge. The analysis focuses on two island case studies in Greece that experienced devastating earthquakes in the 1950s: Cephalonia (Ionian Sea) and Santorini (South Aegean Sea). Both insular cases underwent a comprehensive and (in many respects) innovative reconstruction process that set the scene for establishing a ‘resilience milieu’ and, in a dialectical manner, a ‘safety culture’, which for many years has been embedded in local development trajectories and influenced spatial growth dynamics.

Managing Rather Than Avoiding “Difficulties” in Building Landscape Resilience

Building landscape resilience inspires the cultivation of the landscape’s capacity to recover from disruption and live with changes and uncertainties. However, integrating ecosystem and society within such a unified lens—that is, socio–ecological system (SES) resilience—clashes with many cornerstone concepts in social science, such as power, democracy, rights, and culture. In short, a landscape cannot provide the same values to everyone. However, can building landscape resilience be an effective and just environmental management strategy? Research on this question is limited. A scoping literature review was conducted first to synthesise and map landscape management change based on 111,653 records. Then, we used the Nuozhadu (NZD) catchment as a case study to validate our findings from the literature. We summarised current critiques and created a framework including seven normative categories, or common difficulties, namely resilience for “whom”, “what”, “when”, “where”, “why”, as well as “can” and “how” we apply resilience normatively. We found that these difficulties are overlooked and avoided despite their instructive roles to achieve just landscape management more transparently. Without clear targets and boundaries in building resilience, we found that some groups consume resources and services at the expense of others. The NZD case demonstrates that a strategy of building the NZD’s resilience has improved the conservation of the NZD’s forest ecosystems but overlooked trade-offs between sustaining people and the environment, and between sustainable development for people at different scales. Future researchers, managers, and decision-makers are thereby needed to think resilience more normatively and address the questions in the “seven difficulties” framework before intervening to build landscape resilience.

Hotels in contexts of uncertainty: Measuring organisational resilience

The tourism industry faces multiple changes (economic crises, climate change, technology innovation…). Because of this vulnerability, as evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, the study of hotel resilience is a key issue for the survival and competitiveness of organisations and destinations. Therefore, this paper proposes a holistic model to measure organisational resilience. To that end, it aims to analyse the determinants of organisational resilience, i.e. predictors of resilience (strategy and change), and to assess how they contribute to hotel resilience and performance. Firstly, the hotel context in the Canary Islands is examined to identify the level of impact, frequency and predictability of each type of change. Secondly, scales development and validation were conducted. Finally, the proposed model is validated. Findings confirm that the strategy and change dimensions have a considerable effect on hotel resilience, which positively influences hotel performance. Discussion provides hotel managers with guidelines to improve organisational resilience and performance.

Toward an Integrated Model of Topical, Spatial, and Temporal Scales of Research Inquiry in Park Visitor Use Management

Parks and protected areas (PPAs) are facing complex, transboundary, social, and ecological pressures, including those related to visitor use. Effective visitor use management (VUM) in PPAs requires interdisciplinary thinking across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Yet, the majority of this VUM research is short-term and occurs at relatively discrete spatial scales. A few existing frameworks and conceptual models used in VUM encourage thinking across scales. No single, interdisciplinary conceptual model exists, however, despite longstanding recognition of the need for one. This need was highlighted as a research priority by PPA and VUM subject area experts from across the U.S. at a workshop at Clemson University in 2018. This manuscript draws from the discussions at that workshop and addresses this recognized need. We propose and describe a single multi-scalar conceptual model that integrates topical areas in PPA VUM. Thoughtful, multi-scalar research that transcends disciplines is essential to address contemporary issues across VUM topics. The proposed model and the subsequent discussion are meant to serve as a catalyst for VUM researchers to begin considering both spatial and temporal scales in their PPA-based inquiries.

Using a resilience thinking approach to improve coastal governance responses to complexity and uncertainty: a Tasmanian case study, Australia

Conventional approaches to environmental governance and management are limited in their responses to uncertainty and complexity of social-ecological system (SES) change. Prevailing neoliberal and efficiency-based mindsets tend to focus on avoiding risk and creating "fail-safe" systems. In the last decade, resilience thinking has emerged as a means to transition from risk-averse, and command-and-control governance approaches towards those that are more adaptive, innovative and collaborative. To examine the practical usefulness of a resilience thinking approach, we used a complex, multi-layered case study of Tasmanian coastal governance. Drawing on the diverse expertise and a variety of key governance actors, we identified crucial problems being experienced with the Tasmanian coastal governance regime and discussed potential contributions of resilience thinking to address them. Thematic analysis of the results revealed three major contributions: resilience thinking (1) provides a way to think about change and uncertainty; (2) is compatible with proactive and entrepreneurial leadership; and (3) effectively considers issues of scale in the decision-making process. We conclude by offering practical suggestions towards devolved leadership and improved cross-scale collaboration, and consider the possibility of a hybrid resilience and risk-based approach to coastal management and governance.