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Natural Disasters
Resilience Thinking
The term resilience has been used by engineers since the 1850s to describe materials and by psychologists since the 1950s to describe individuals (Figure 1). In the 1970s, CS Holling infused resilience into ecology when he defined and theoretically evaluated ecosystem resilience, the ability of an ecosystem to absorb disturbance and maintain function (Holling 1973).
Over the next few decades, Holling and others became increasingly aware that ecosystems and human systems are inextricable. In addition they felt a new “sustainability science” was needed to address a growing attention for vulnerability and risk associated with climate change (Walker et al. 2004). It is in this context that resilience thinking shifted toward a focus on social-ecological systems, or any system with goods and services that are regulated by a combination of socioeconomic, cultural and natural resources. Whether watershed, woodland or reef, resilience describes the system’s capacity to absorb disturbance and maintain the flow of goods and services.
Members of the Resilience Alliance (resalliance.org), a consortium of researchers and practitioners from many disciplines, have published a breadth of work regarding the application of resilience thinking to social-ecological systems. In a report from a recent workshop, Salt et al. (2014) summarize 12 attributes of general resilience that apply to social and/or ecological systems. Four that apply to both social-ecological systems relay insight to how a social-ecological system may be assessed and monitored (Table 1). All 12 attributes can be found in the original document (Salt et al. 2014: (http://www.resalliance.org/files/General_Resilience_paper.pdf).
Figure 1
An immense literature on resilience and social-ecological systems has emerged in the last 10-15 years, including four peer-reviewed journals dedicated to the subject: Ecology and Society (2004), International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment (2010), Resilience (2012), and Resilience: International Policies, Practices and Discourses (2013). Since the inception of the Resilience Center in Stockholm, Sweden in 2007, at least nine more institutes dedicated to resilience thinking have opened. Of the 10 institutions we know of that are dedicated to the study of social-ecological resilience, none are in the Caribbean. According to a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is a pressing need for resilience planning at the local level (www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/srex/SREX_Full_Report.pdf). Coastal regions in particular have an urgent need for resilience-based management planning due to high density of human populations and compromised ecosystems (Adger et al. 2005).
Links to Facilities Dedicated to Social-Ecological Resilience Research, Education and Implementation:
The Resiliency Institute, Naperville, IL (USA) since 2012:
http://www.theresiliencyinstitute.net/
The Resilience Institute, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA (USA):
https://huxley.wwu.edu/resilience-institute
Community and Regional Resilience Institute, Oakridge TN (USA) since 2010:
Resilient Design Institute, Brattleboro, VT (USA) since 2012:
http://www.resilientdesign.org/
Stockholm Resiliency Center, Stockholm, Sweden since 2007:
http://www.stockholmresilience.org/
Torrens Resilience Institute, Torrens, South Australia since 2009:
Brooklyn College Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay, New York, NY (USA) since 2013:
University College London Institute for Security and Resilience Studies, London, England since 2010:
Resilience Development Institute, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (USA) since 2015:
http://www.ou.edu/outreach/redi.html
New York State Resilience Institute for Storms and Emergencies, since 2013:
Expanding the intellectual footprint of a marine lab: From MREC to C-CAIR
An exciting opportunity is in place to advance resilience thinking on St Croix and the Caribbean at-large. Although in its final stages of pre-construction development, the Marine Research Center (MREC) at Salt River Bay has only loosely defined its programming mission. As you can see in Figure 2, the language the planning team elected for their mission and core concepts is congruent with resilience thinking.
The MREC programming concept includes themes beyond its core mission (Figures 2 & 3). These themes were set in place to address the geological and human history at Salt River Bay, the proposed location for the facility. Combined, the mission, core concepts, and programming concepts are thematically diffuse. At its core, moreover, the MREC is intended to be a marine lab, modelled similarly to former West Indies Lab and the 27 other marine labs in the region (http://www.amlc-carib.org/).
To address the urgent need for resilience thinking in coastal regions, we propose reorganizing the MREC’s programming schematic to explicitly communicate its underlying intention to commit to social, as well as ecological, resilience. In addition to its enhanced value to the community, we believe that the geographical location of the site would link the Caribbean region to global network of resilience thinking and planning.
We propose C-CAIR: the Caribbean Center for the Advancement of Island Resilience, a trans-disciplinary community center dedicated to advancing the island’s social-ecological capacity to cope with change (Figure 4). The revised thematic diagram communicates that social and ecological systems are connected and, when services of both systems are highly functional, what emerges are indicators of social-ecological resilience and the capacity to cope with change: diverse ecology, diverse economy, increased food security and increased cultural cohesion.
Note that other indicators of general resilience have been identified (e.g., emergency response capacity, fresh water security) but have been omitted here either because they inherently lack an ecological aspect (e.g., emergency response capacity) or because we felt it was important to maintain a manageable focus.
In the context of these indicators, four focal areas for research, education and collaboration emerge that we consider manageable and appropriate for C-CAIR: reef resilience, economic innovation, food security, and cultural cohesion. Note that these focal areas are all interconnected and each would require contributions from a range of disciplines.
Social-ecological resilience science is an emerging field. As noted earlier we know of only 10 institutions world-wide dedicated to social-ecological resilience research, education and collaboration. The oldest and most influential is in Stockholm, Sweden, established in 2007. Meanwhile, there are 27 marine labs in the Caribbean.
Social-ecological resilience thinking is not new to the Caribbean, but there is no single facility dedicated to this end. It is our conclusion that a research station dedicated to advancing social-ecological resilience will better serve St. Croix and the Caribbean region at large more meaningfully than a research station framed in any other light.
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4