9.4 Resilience

9.4.1 What is resilience?

Resilience is the ability of a ‘system’ to cope with pressures and shocks while retaining key characteristics of that system.

When many things interact in complex and dynamic ways, the overall set of interactions is often referred to as a system. Systems exhibit properties that would not be possible if the parts do not interact. Resilience is one property that emerges from the complex interactions in systems. Resilience was originally considered in engineering systems, but during the past several decades it has been investigated in relation to ecological systems and human social systems. These systems are made up of interconnected ecological and social components, such as urban ecosystems, nature reserves and agricultural land. They influence, and are influenced by, human behaviours, technologies, economies, institutions and policies (see 100 Resilient Cities, Chapin¹³⁵ and Moberg et al¹³⁶).

Most people understand the concept of ‘resilience’ in relation to the capacity of a person or a community to remain strong in the face of hardship. The same general idea applies to resilience of socioecological systems. The Resilience Alliance, an international program fostering research on this concept, describes resilience:

Ecosystem resilience is the capacity of an ecosystem to tolerate disturbance without collapsing into a qualitatively different state that is controlled by a different set of processes. A resilient ecosystem can withstand shocks and rebuild itself when necessary. Resilience in social systems has the added capacity of humans to anticipate and plan for the future. Humans are part of the natural world.

Another way of describing the resilience of a socioecological system like the ACT is its long-term capacity to adapt to change while maintaining desirable and valued characteristics.

Resilience is not about maintaining a static state; rather, it is the capacity to change within limits while retaining its key characteristics. For the ACT, resilience would mean that Canberra and its surroundings are able to deal with changes such as population growth, urban expansion, climate change and global economic fluctuations, and continue to function and thrive economically, socially and environmentally.

To deal with most major threats we need a combination of both specified and general resilience:

• Specified resilience is resilience to known pressures and shocks. Often, this type of resilience is about having the skills, knowledge, equipment, plans and other resources appropriate for the specific threat.
• General resilience enables a system to absorb disturbances of various kinds, including novel and unforeseen ones.

Weston ParkPhoto: ACT Government

A system with high levels of general resilience is more likely to be able to detect threats to desired values early, and address them well before those threats cause the system to approach a threshold of potential concern. Characteristics of socioecological systems that have high levels of general resilience include:

• diversity within human and environmental systems
• openness of boundaries, so that people, ideas and species can move freely and be enriched by outside influences
• maintenance of reserves in both human and environmental systems, including things like habitat patches, local knowledge and ‘corporate memory’ (the combined knowledge and experience of an organisation’s employees)
• ‘tight feedbacks’ in which critical changes in the system are quickly detected, communicated and responded to
• modularity, so that a shock or failure in one part of the system does not disturb the whole system
• strong social capital, including leadership, social networks and trust.

By contrast, systems with low general resilience are those where there is little diversity, limited networks of expertise and knowledge, and poor recognition or communication about changes that may threaten desired characteristics of the system.¹³⁷

We usually become aware of a system’s resilience after a shock has been experienced (see Case study 9.2).

How does resilience relate to the state of the environment reporting framework?

Research during the past few decades suggests that considering ecological systems as separate from human social systems is meaningless in a State of the Environment Report. The reason a society cares about the state of the environment is because the state of the environment affects two things we value highly: the persistence of other species and the wellbeing of humans who depend on the environment for survival and quality of life. Therefore, a resilience assessment of impacts in the DPSIR framework considers both ecological and human social systems as tightly coupled parts of a larger socioecological system.

Figure 9.15 shows one way to think about where a resilience assessment fits within a DPSIR framework.

Resilience has been assessed for each theme chapter of this report (see Chapters 4–8). This section focuses on how the assessment has been conducted.

Figure 9.15 How resilience and adaptive capacity relate to the state, impacts and responses components of the Driver–Pressure–State–Impact–Response framework

9.4.2 Assessing resilience

As the understanding of the characteristics required to give socioecological systems resilience has emerged, many decision-makers have asked for a value, number or score for resilience, like the numbers we can use to assess water or air quality. Research during the past few decades shows it is neither possible nor advisable to try and put a number on resilience because of several challenges:

• Resilience draws on a range of attributes of socioecological systems that are assessable in qualitative and sometimes quantitative ways, but, ultimately, whether a system behaves resiliently will depend on complex and largely unpredictable combinations, such as when shocks happen and how people or other organisms in the system respond at the time.
• Even if we could put a number on resilience, we could not interpret that number because we cannot know whether we have too little, enough or even too much resilience until after a shock has been experienced and responded to.
• A key aspect of resilience is maintaining key characteristics of a system (sometimes called its ‘identity’), but often we are not clear about what those characteristics are (eg key functions of an ecosystem or key values of a society) or not everyone agrees on the same characteristics as being ‘key’.
• There can be trade-offs between resilience to some shocks versus resilience to others (eg in the United States, New Orleans put a lot of resources into building levee banks to protect itself from one particular threat – floods – but found when hurricane Katrina hit and caused the levee banks to fail that not enough had been invested in the ability of communities to cope with unexpected crises).
• Resilience is not always good (eg a weed-infested ecosystem might be very resilient to a range of shocks, including the shocks humans impose to try and remove the weeds).

However, it is usually possible to identify whether resilience is increasing or decreasing, and whether there is cause for concern (see the example in Case study 9.3). For example, if a community in a fire-prone area has only one road in and out, we might be alerted to the risk that this community has limited resilience if that road is cut during a fire. Similarly, we might not be able to know all the shocks that our socioecological systems might face in the future, but there is great value in thinking about the pressures we currently know about and ones that are possibilities in the future, and what might be required for us to have resilience to those and similar pressures.

9.4.3 A resilience assessment for the ACT

The resilience assessment completed as part of the state of the environment reporting process provides a preliminary snapshot of the ACT’s position in relation to the socioecological resilience of its air, water, land, biodiversity, heritage, human needs, and climate change values and vulnerabilities. As a first-cut and indicative resilience assessment, it aims to provide the basis for further consultation and development among government and community members.

In assessing resilience in a State of the Environment Report, it is important to consider not only the current state of the ACT’s socioecological systems, but also what can be learnt from past instances of shocks and recoveries.^141,142

Methodology

A number of methods are designed to assess socioecological resilience. Broadly, these methods are characterised by one or more of the following:

• use of expert judgement
• input of stakeholders
• ranking and mapping; this method produces a qualitative ranking against predetermined criteria and maps, based on quantitative results
• quantification.¹⁴³

The resilience assessment used in this report involved a series of expert workshops. The approach involved:

• summarising the assessments of indicators in sections ‘What are the drivers and pressures on our environment?’ and ‘How is our environment faring?’, and the management effectiveness assessment in Chapter 10: What are we doing and what effect is it having?
• establishing the broad values and desired outcomes the community expects from the environment (eg clean air, good quality and sufficient quantities of drinking water)
• summarising the pressures that threaten values
• considering the availability of
  • skills, expertise and ideas to inform and develop further work on socioecological resilience
  • evidence to establish potential thresholds of concern
• establishing the networks and connections that currently exist – these include sociopolitical networks, as well as physical components such as connectivity of ecological communities
• considering the ability of the ACT to adapt to a changing socioecological environment.

These assessments, explained in further detail in the following sections, were then used to make a preliminary and indicative assessment of the vulnerabilities of the ACT’s air, land, water, biodiversity, human needs and climate change values (Table 9.33).

Resilience of what?

To assess whether the ACT’s socioecological systems are resilient first requires identifying what are the values and desired outcomes of the systems that the ACT’s people want to maintain in the face of pressures. We also need to know whether these values and outcomes are known about and agreed to, and whether there are processes that allow views about desired values and outcomes to evolve.

The themes examined in the State of the Environment Report (air, land, water, biodiversity, heritage) are themselves an articulation of some of these societal values; they represent key areas in which there is broad societal agreement about what is important for good environmental health. However, these are not the only values considered important in the ACT, and there is ongoing debate about which are most important, what priority they should be given and how to manage different values.

Deciding what we want to be resilient is ultimately a question of human values. Human values are expressed in our society in numerous ways, including through public debate and discussion, artistic and cultural representation, surveys and citizen juries. As societal values shift and change, different issues become prominent and become a focus for new laws and standards, although there is often a time lag between a shift in societal values and formal recognition of these values in political and legal systems.

Table 9.31 provides a list of what the OCSE considers the ACT community is likely to value in relation to socioecological resilience.

Table 9.31 Resilience ‘of what’ in relation to the themes of this report

Theme	Resilience of what – what does society value?
Air	High air quality; the benefits of high air quality for people; governance systems that monitor and maintain good air quality
Land	Maintaining the capacity of land and soil to perform functions such as nutrient cycling and regulating water flow; human systems that encourage, monitor and enforce appropriate land management
Water	Good quality and sufficient quantities of water for drinking, recreation, and the maintenance of attractive and healthy public spaces; water to maintain biodiversity and other ecosystem functions; governance systems that monitor and maintain good water quality
Biodiversity	High levels of diversity (genetic, species, ecosystems) in urban and natural ecosystems; land management practices and governance systems that protect and enhance biodiversity; appropriate fire regimes that strike a balance between risk management and environmental protection
Heritage	Maintenance of natural and cultural heritage sites, and people’s access to these sites; maintaining the community’s sense of identity based on heritage; systems that monitor, maintain and enhance heritage
Climate change	Protecting those aspects of the natural and built environment, human health and social systems that are vulnerable to extreme weather events and higher-than-average temperatures; human systems that can predict and respond to climate extremes
Human needs	Maintaining the ecosystem services that support human life; maintaining high levels of livability (eg human health, safety, economic and social opportunity, recreation opportunities, uncongested roads) in the face of change

 

Resilience to what?

The next step in a resilience assessment is to understand:

• what the pressures and drivers are that might threaten the values and where surprises might come from
• whether the key drivers and pressures are well understood
• whether we have early warning systems.

These issues have been addressed in the section ‘What are the drivers and pressures on our environment?’ and Chapter 10: What are we doing and what effect is it having?

Table 9.32 provides examples of the types of disturbances that can challenge achieving some of the environmental outcomes desired in the ACT. As well as specific disturbances or threats related to particular outcomes, there are also more general cross-cutting threats. For example, anything that weakens monitoring and regulation standards and practices makes it more difficult to detect and respond to disturbances of all kinds. The assessments in Table 9.32 reflect good identification of current pressures, but little evidence of systematic thinking about future pressures and shocks.

Table 9.32 Resilience ‘to what’ in relation to the themes of this report

Theme	What pressures do the ACT’s socioecological systems need to be resilient to?
Air	Pressures that decrease air quality, such as increased vehicle traffic, wood heaters, urban fires and bushfires
Land	Pressures that degrade land and soil, including inappropriate land management, soil contamination and urban expansion
Water	Pressures that decrease water quality, including increased temperatures, sedimentation, toxic run-off, autumn leaf falls in waterways; land management and extreme events that disrupt the ability of the vegetation and soils in the water catchments from filtering and purifying water before it enters lake, dams and streams
Biodiversity	Pressures that decrease biodiversity, including urban development, inappropriate land management practices and inappropriate fire regimes, including those started by arson; lack of knowledge about what constitutes appropriate fire regimes that strike a balance between the protection of life and property, and the maintenance of biodiversity
Heritage	Environmental and human pressures that degrade or undermine physical and cultural heritage, including vandalism and extreme weather events
Climate change	Changing climate patterns in the ACT, including extreme weather events and increased average temperatures
Human needs	Pressures that have the potential to degrade levels of livability, such as population growth, traffic congestion, social inequality, air pollution, loss of employment opportunities, loss of recreation facilities and green space

 

Can a sufficient diversity of skills, expertise and ideas be accessed to understand the socioecological system?

This component of the assessment used the management effectiveness assessment in Chapter 10: What are we doing and what effect is it having? The context and planning components of that assessment considered whether policy-makers and land managers in the ACT are able draw on sufficient skills and knowledge to understand how the ecological (and socioecological, where relevant) systems work, what key issues need to be addressed and how to address them. In general, it was found that such skills and knowledge were strong, relevant and accessible.

Are potential thresholds of concern considered, understood and monitored?

Thresholds are a key concept in resilience thinking. A threshold is a point at which a system changes into a different state where its structures, processes and products are different from what they were in the previous state. Once a system passes through a threshold, the changes are usually either irreversible, or will require a large amount of time, energy or other resources to reverse.

A ‘threshold of potential concern’ is a threshold that, once passed through, means that the system has lost some or all of the characteristics that we valued (see ‘Resilience of what?’). Resilient systems have the ability to stay away from thresholds of concern. The closer a system gets to one of these thresholds, the smaller the shock needed to push the system into a different state. It is often difficult to strictly define where thresholds lie, so it is important to understand the factors that can push a system towards a threshold and the factors that pull the system back from the thresholds.¹⁴⁴

The ACT state of the environment reporting process is a valuable avenue to identify and monitor the key pressures and drivers that undermine the health of our environment over time and that may be pushing our socioecological systems towards thresholds of concern (see Case study 9.4).

The preliminary assessments in Table 9.33 conclude that some thresholds are understood and taken into account for air (including climate), water and heritage, but that there is low understanding of thresholds in relation to land and biodiversity. This is concerning, because the 2011 national State of the Environment Report and some key recent international publications have suggested that thresholds in relation to soils and biodiversity are already being approached or exceeded in Australia and many other countries.^145,146 It should be noted that this deficiency is not a reflection on the calibre of staff responsible for managing land and biodiversity, but on the limited resourcing of research and development in relation to ecological thresholds and possible future challenges.

Can indicators and understanding be adapted as experience and information grow?

To be resilient, the ACT’s decision-making processes must be able to take account of new information, and adapt what it monitors and how so that it is able to better assess the various factors that contribute to its ability to absorb and adapt to pressures and shocks. This assessment concluded that there is high ability to adapt indicators and monitoring with respect to air, water and heritage, but that there was limited ability with respect to land and biodiversity. This is because data collection is limited in these areas, we use indicators that do not go directly to the key issues, and changing these approaches is expensive.

How might the ways in which things are connected affect resilience?

The nature of connections (ie networks) between parts of socioecological systems (eg between species, habitat patches, people, institutions, projects, programs) has been found to be a vitally important determinant of resilience. For example, if many aspects of the management of the environment were controlled from one central location, one funding source, one policy or program, or one or a few key people, then the management system would be likely to collapse if that central focal point were to fail. Often, management of complex issues within communities, or even governments, is heavily reliant on key individuals who have high levels of skill and understanding and strong support from others. But if that person becomes ill, or moves to another position or place, then that management can become dysfunctional, or at least much less effective.

Undisturbed ecological systems are usually highly resilient because there are many links between species and resources, and key functions are performed by multiple species. If one species declines then another takes its role. This process is often called ‘ecological redundancy’.¹⁴⁷ Disturbed ecological systems usually have less redundancy and less resilience because they have been simplified. In a similar way, seeking efficiency in the development and implementation of policies and plans can leave socioecological systems with low redundancy and resilience (ie they have low levels of ‘back-up’ to call on when critical functions are challenged by shocks).¹⁴⁸

The management effectiveness assessment revealed that there are well-developed and potentially resilient networks within those agencies, other institutions and individuals involved in anticipating and responding to changes in the state of air, land, water, biodiversity and heritage in the ACT. In addition, there are high levels of interaction and cooperation between these groups, especially at an agency level, which is likely to minimise the chances of issues being overlooked. Hence, the assessments against the criterion ‘Connectivity of networks’ in Table 9.33 are positive across all themes.

It was frequently noted, however, that despite these strong networks, resource allocation can be a problem for dealing with issues, especially in relation to land and biodiversity. In the opinion of the assessment group, these resource constraints are likely to inhibit seeking and acting on feedback of new information and ideas from the literature and informed individuals.

What is the adaptive capacity of the ACT’s socioecological systems?

Adaptive capacity is distinct from resilience. Whereas resilience is the property of a system that allows it to absorb shocks while retaining its key characteristics, adaptive capacity is the capacity of humans or other species that take actions in response to change to influence resilience.¹⁴⁹

The adaptive capacity of the ACT’s socioecological systems, therefore, is the capacity of humans and other species to respond to change so that the values of the systems that are important to us are maintained.

In practice, the characteristics that give systems high resilience also give them high adaptive capacity, the difference being that adapting requires action. Adaptive capacity in ecological systems is related to genetic diversity, biological diversity and the heterogeneity of landscape mosaics.¹⁵⁰ Social systems, institutions and networks that learn, store and share knowledge and experience provide means by which interest groups can interact productively and problems can be solved flexibly.¹⁵⁰

Four critical factors interact to influence adaptive capacity:¹⁵¹

• learning to live with change and uncertainty
• nurturing diversity for resilience
• combining different types of knowledge for learning
• creating opportunity for self-organisation towards socioecological sustainability.

The assessment group considered these factors in making its assessment of the adaptive capacity of the ACT’s socioecological systems in Table 9.33. Adaptive capacity was judged to be high for air, water and heritage. Adaptive capacity was rated as limited for land and biodiversity, largely because of the resource constraints thought to limit adaptation of indicators and take account of new information and viewpoints, which were discussed previously.

Table 9.33 Preliminary assessment of the resilience of socioecological systems that underpin achieving desired outcomes for air, land, water, biodiversity, heritage, human needs and climate change in the ACT

Question or statement about socioecological system resilience		Assessment criteria	Air	Land	Water	Biodiversity	Heritage	Human needs	Climate change
Resilience of what?	Are values and desired outcomes known and agreed to?	Outcomes not known or agreed to Few outcomes known and agreed to Some outcomes known and agreed to, with gaps Outcomes known and agreed to
	Are there processes that allow views about desired values and outcomes to evolve?	No processes identified Processes exist, not always linked to decision-making Processes exist, linked to decision-making Processes exist that foster debate and discussion, and link to decision-making
Resilience to what?	Are key drivers and pressures known?	Threat processes not known Few threat processes identified or understood Some threat processes known, with gaps Good understanding of threat processes
	Is there ongoing identification of drivers, pressures and possible shocks?	No processes for ongoing identification Some processes exist, not always systematic or linked to decision-making Processes linked to decision-making exist, with gaps Regular processes identify and act on threats
Can a sufficient diversity of skills, expertise and ideas be accessed to understand the socioecological system?		No expertise or capacity Limited expertise and capacity Good expertise, limited capacity Good expertise and capacity
Are potential thresholds of concern considered, understood and monitored?		No monitoring Limited monitoring or understanding of thresholds Regular monitoring of outcomes, some thresholds understood Regular monitoring of outcomes and drivers, good understanding of thresholds
What is the likelihood that indicators and understanding can be adapted as experience and information grow?		No ability to adapt monitoring Limited ability to adapt monitoring (eg at a high expense) Monitoring can be adapted, with some limitations Monitoring can be readily adapted
Resilience networks	Feedbacks	No feedback processes Limited feedback processes, with large gaps Feedback processes exist, with some gaps Good feedback processes
	Connectivity of networks	No networks exist to share information Limited networks exist Good networks exist, some limits in connectivity Excellent networks and connectivity
Adaptive capacity		Adaptive capacity appears to be inadequate Adaptive processes exist but have significant limitations that reduce ability to adapt to change Adaptive processes exist, with gaps Adaptive processes are strong
Resilience assessment	Overall assessment	Resilience processes are inadequate Resilience processes exist but have significant limitations that reduce ability to adapt to change Resilience processes exist, with gaps Resilience processes are strong

9.4.4 Summary

A resilience assessment poses questions about whether the ACT’s socioecological system has the resources, monitoring, feedback and networks in place to respond rapidly, effectively and successfully to changes that threaten the things that the ACT’s people value in their relationships with the environment. Table 9.33 presents a summary of the ACT’s resilience for air, land, water, biodiversity, heritage, human needs and climate change.

It is somewhat artificial to judge resilience and adaptive capacity of air, land, water, biodiversity and heritage separately, because they are interconnected parts of the one system bound together by the natural environment and its interactions with humans and their preferences and needs. These themes are, however, dealt with to some extent separately by government and nongovernment institutions, and so it is useful to draw attention to the different perceived strengths and weaknesses of arrangements under these themes. Where there are complex links between drivers and pressures, and their impacts, it is challenging to identify how close the ACT’s coupled social and ecological processes might be to thresholds of potential concern. It is also challenging to respond in a timely and effective fashion to stay away from those thresholds.

Overall, the ACT appears to have good socioecological processes in place for maintaining much of what is valued, and has performed very well against targets for reserving comprehensive, adequate and representative samples of ecosystems, which is a significant risk mitigation strategy. However, there are important gaps. The ACT is not alone in facing these challenges – they are issues for all jurisdictions within Australia, and most developed and developing countries around the world.¹⁴⁵

The processes that appear to most need attention to improve the ACT’s ability to deal with these challenges are those relating to:

• encouraging access to diverse new information and ideas about land and biodiversity management
• building new information into better indicators of the state of land and biodiversity
• resourcing the collection of relevant information so that improved indicators can be monitored and interpreted, and turned into timely and effective actions.

These deficiencies are not reflections of the calibre or dedication of staff involved in monitoring and managing land and biodiversity in the ACT; rather, they are a reflection on resourcing. The ultimate illustration of this deficiency of resourcing is that there were no rigorous and direct indicators of the state of biodiversity or the quality of ecosystem processes available to those preparing Chapter 5: Land and Chapter 7: Biodiversity.