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Resilience in Environmental Risk and Impact Assessment: Concepts and Measurement
Citation:
Angeler, D., C. Allen, A. Garmestani, K. Pope, D. Twidwell, AND M. Bundschuh. Resilience in Environmental Risk and Impact Assessment: Concepts and Measurement. BULLETIN OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINATION AND TOXICOLOGY. Springer, New York, NY, 101(5):543-548, (2018).
Impact/Purpose:
In this paper, we discuss resilience concepts and measurement approaches. We also discuss the ramifications of system complexity for quantification of resilience. Scientists and managers are increasingly interested in using resilience concepts in environmental risk and impact assessment. Different resilience definitions have been suggested and debated, and many of these are based on distinct assumptions of system regimes (Angeler and Allen 2016). Accounting for such assumptions has significant implications for resilience-based risk assessment (Bundschuh et al. 2017). In this paper, we discuss resilience concepts and measurement approaches. We also discuss the ramifications of system complexity for quantification of resilience.
Description:
Different resilience concepts have different assumptions about system dynamics, which has implications for resilience-based environmental risk and impact assessment. Engineering resilience (recovery) dominates in the risk assessment literature but this definition does not account for the possibility of ecosystems to exist in multiple regimes. In this paper we discuss resilience concepts and quantification methods. Specifically, we discuss when a system fails to show engineering resilience after disturbances, indicating a shift to a potentially undesired regime. We show quantification methods that can assess the stability of this new regime to inform managers about possibilities to transform the system to a more desired regime. We point out the usefulness of an adaptive inference, modelling and management approach that is based on reiterative testing of hypothesis. This process facilitates learning about, and reduces uncertainty arising from risk and impact.
URLs/Downloads:
Free access through PubMed Central
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00128-018-2467-5