A handful of heuristics and some propositions for understanding resilience in social-ecological systems

By B. Walker, L. Gunderson, Ann Kinzig, Carl Folke, S. Carpenter, Lisen Schultz. 2006

1,364 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper is a work-in-progress account of ideas and propositions about resilience in socialecological systems. It articulates our understanding of how these complex systems change and what determines their ability to absorb disturbances in either their ecological or their social domains. We call them “propositions” because, although they are useful in helping us understand and compare different social-ecological systems, they are not sufficiently well defined to be considered formal hypotheses. These propositions were developed in two workshops, in 2003 and 2004, in which participants compared the dynamics of 15 case studies in a wide range of regions around the world. The propositions raise many questions, and we present a list of some that could help define the next phase of resilience-related research.

Subfields: Environmental Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7819c704b0f130308a2dce489133c4e5f7f89d0c

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In Environmental Chemistry

Citations in the corpus

Toward a network perspective of the study of resilience in social-ecological systems (2006, background): “Obviously, there are a variety of frameworks for the study of social-ecological systems, but in our opinion they lack a clear formal description of structural changes, one of the key aspects of resilience theory and the propositions for research in this area (Walker et al. 2006).”
Collapse and Reorganization in Social-Ecological Systems: Questions, Some Ideas, and Policy Implications (2006, background): “The national ideological concern with maintaining settlers in otherwise “empty” land ensured continuity of support, or “system memory” (Walker et al. 2006).”
Regional Resilience in Italy: A Very Long-Run Analysis (2014, background): “Regional resilience derives from the ideas of resilience developed in engineering, ecological science and, more recently, social ecology (see HOLLING, 1996; HOLLING, 1973; and WALKER et al., 2006, respectively).”
Research, part of a Special Feature on Resilience and Vulnerability of Arid and Semi-Arid Social Ecological Systems Resilient or Vulnerable Livelihoods? Assessing Livelihood Dynamics and Trajectories in Rural Botswana (2010, background): “Walker et al. (2006) define resilience as “the capacity of a system to experience shocks while retaining essentially the same function, structure, feedbacks, and therefore identity”.”
Insight, part of a Special Feature on Managing Surprises in Complex Systems Ecological and Human Community Resilience in Response to Natural Disasters (2010, background): “These scientists observe qualitative changes in both the structure and function of ecosystems (Gunderson 2000, Scheffer and Carpenter 2003, Folke et al. 2004) or the ecological regime or identity (Walker et al. 2006, Walker and Salt 2006).”
Dancing the Supply Chain: Toward Transformative Supply Chain Management (2021, background): “It allows the discipline to analyze how the structures and functions of a supply chain change as a result of both internal dynamics and external interactions (see Walker et al., 2006).”
Guest Editorial, part of a Special Feature on Exploring Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems Exploring Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems Through Comparative Studies and Theory Development: Introduction to the Special Issue (2006, background): “The first paper in this special issue (Walker et al. 2006) deals with the set of developing propositions that emerged from the two workshops.”
A scoping review of the development resilience literature: Theory, methods and evidence (2021, background): “In ecology, Holling (1973) described resilience as the amount of disturbance a system can absorb before shifting into an alternative state (Walker et al, 2006) while others follow Pimm’s (1984) focus on the speed of return to a pre-existing equilibrium following a perturbation or shock (Perrings,…”
Recessionary Shocks and Regional Employment: Evidence on the Resilience of U.K. Regions (2012, neutral): “These studies have tended to draw on ideas of resilience developed in ecological dynamics and social-ecology (see e.g., Walker et al., 2006).”
Governance, scale and the environment: the importance of recognizing knowledge claims in transdisciplinary arenas (2011, background): “Panarchy theory does not differ from Hierarchy Theory in the sense that it assumes that “most structures are not scale invariant, but rather occupy discrete domains in space or time” (Walker et al. 2006:13).”
Focusing the Meaning(s) of Resilience: Resilience as a Descriptive Concept and a Boundary Object (2007, background): “…(e.g., Walker 2002, Gunderson and Holling 2002, Bellwood et al. 2004, Nyström 2006) whereas, on the other hand, it represents a boundary object with a rather wide and vague meaning (e.g., Gunderson and Holling 2002, Adger et al. 2003, Folke 2003, Hughes et al 2005, Folke 2006, Walker et al. 2006).”