Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic: Perspectives from the Barents Area

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Chapter 8 · A resilience approach to adaptation actions

8.3 ‘Ingredients’ of resilience With the intention of operationalizing the above concepts as resilience indicators, a three-step approach is taken. First, key ingredients of social-ecological resilience are identified from empirical research and their specific qualities are explored (Section 8.3). Second, the strength and weaknesses of the indicator concept is discussed to shed light on ways in which useful indicators might be constructed and applied (Section 8.4). Last (Section 8.5),a framework is proposed that provides a bridge between the resilience ingredients and their implementation as indicators in a particular context, focusing on applications where strengthening particular ingredients of resilience supports adaptation to change, including as yet unknown disturbances. Key ingredients of resilience – distinct qualities that can facilitate effective adaptation to disturbances or support transformational change where desired – have been identified from a wide-ranging body of empirical research. Based on these studies, Folke et al. (2003) identified four qualities as fundamental ingredients of social-ecological resilience: assuming change, fostering diversity, ongoing learning and knowledge development, and capacity for self-organization. To this list can be added a fifth: sustainable livelihoods (Tanner et al., 2015), which speaks to the activities in which households and communities engage to provide for themselves basic sustenance and other benefits. 8.3.1 Assuming change Assuming change - or rather, acknowledging change as the norm – means accepting uncertainty and surprise as part of reality. Change, including abrupt and disruptive change, can be approached as an opportunity for pursuing developmental goals whenmaintaining current conditions may not be optimal, desirable,or perhaps even viable (Folke,2006).Most importantly, assuming change leads to different kinds of choices than does an expectation that constancy will be the norm.Anovice hiker who sets off into the mountains expecting warm, sunny conditions to persist is more likely to be caught off-guard and ill-prepared than amore experienced hiker who knows that all conditions are temporary and prepares accordingly. Supporting communities to prepare to navigate a diverse range of challenges is a far more complex undertaking, but the same basic principle applies. 8.3.2 Diversity Diversity is important because it broadens the range of possible response paths. Also characterized in terms of redundancy, diversity can be seen as a formof insurance; when disturbance or changing conditions lead to the failure of one type of response, other mechanisms are available to carry out or secure essential functions. In the social context, diversity of knowledge or skills can provide the foundations for creative problem solving by maintaining a stock of elements that can be combined in novel ways in response to change (Carayannis et al., 2008; Ostrom, 2009; Fabinyi et al.,2014).In an ecosystems context,biodiversity is one example of diversity that has been identified as enhancing the resilience of ecosystem states that are desirable for social- ecological adaptation and transformation.Biodiversity supports essential functions upon which human life and well-being

Fostering diversity

Assuming change

Ongoing learning and knowledge development

Capacity for self-organization

Sustainable livelihoods

Figure 8.3 Five key ‘ingredients’ of social-ecological resilience. The two in the upper tier are cross-cutting and contribute resilience to each of those in the lower tier.

depend, from local to planetary scales, and which, from a social-ecological perspective, can be looked at as producing sets of desirable ecosystem services. Within biodiversity, the diversity of responses to environmental change among species can contribute to maintaining a given ecosystem function. Response diversity is particularly important for ecosystem self- and re-organization in the light of ongoing variability and change, and for ecosystem renewal following rapid change (Elmqvist et al., 2003). Response diversity thus also links to the capacity of self-organization as it applies to social systems (discussed in Section 8.3.4). Among the five ingredients of resilience, the first two (assuming change and diversity) are cross-cutting, meaning that they contribute resilience in each of the other categories. While diversity is a property of both social and ecological sub-systems, assuming change is clearly a property of only the social.Diversity and the orientation toward change are important properties of a resilient system, while the remaining three (livelihoods, knowledge/learning, self-organization) represent spheres of activity. Considered together in this manner, they can inform options for actions that influence the capacity to respond effectively to changing conditions. Figure 8.3 illustrates these ingredients of resilience. 8.3.3 Knowledge and learning Knowledge and capacity to learn to modify and augment existing knowledge is the key means by which community choices can be directed in ways that foster greater resilience.A growing body of research on the capacity to adapt and respond to climate and other change, acknowledges that knowledge represents both an important determinant and an indicator (Klein et al., 2014;Williams et al., 2015). It helps people to make sense of their world, enables them tomore accurately anticipate future developments, and“ empowers people to participate more effectively in local, national and international conversations ” (Williams et al., 2015). One way in which knowledge of the iterative nature of cause-and-effect relationships between communities and ecosystems supports better choices is that it makes it possible to more accurately anticipate the social and ecosystems consequences of those choices. Decisions can then be made cognizant of at least some of the trade-offs embedded in choices between what are often competing priorities.