Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

36 that forms the broader underlying framework is that it does not easily account for the fact that the very nature of systems may change over time (Scheffer 2009). This implies that, in order to understand the dynamics of an intertwined social–ecological system (SES), other concepts are needed. In many disciplines, human actions are often viewed as external drivers of ecosystem dynamics; examples include fishing, water harvesting, and polluting. Through such a lens the manager is an external intervener in ecosystem resilience. There are those who suggest constraining the use of the resilience concept to ecosystem resilience, for conceptual clarity, as the basis for practical application of resilience within ecological science and ecosystem management (e.g. Brand and Jax 2007). However, many of the serious, recurring problems in natural resource use and management stem precisely from the lack of recognition that ecosystems and the social systems that use and depend on them are inextricably linked. It is the feedback loops among them, as interdependent social–ecological systems, that determine their overall dynamics. ADAPTABILITY AND TRANSFORMABILITY AS PREREQUISITES FOR SES RESILIENCE Social–ecological resilience isabout peopleandnatureas interdependent systems. This is true for local communitiesand their surrounding ecosystems, but the great acceleration of human activities on earth now also makes it an issue at global scales (Steffen et al. 2007), making it difficult and even irrational to continue to separate the ecological and social and to try to explain them independently, even for analytical purposes. To put the issue in context, ice core data reveal that humanity has for the last 10,000 years lived in a relatively stable climate, an era referred to as the Holocene. This era has allowed agriculture and all major human civilizations to develop and flourish. The future of human well-being may be seriously compromised if we should pass a critical threshold that tips the earth system out of this stability domain (Rockström et al. 2009). It is plausible that current development paradigms and patterns, if continued, would tip the integrated human–earth system into a radically different basin of attraction (Steffen et al. 2007). Preventing such an undesired critical transition will require innovation and novelty. Profound change in society is likely to be required for persistence in the Holocene stability domain. Alas, resilience of behavioral patterns in society is notoriously large and a serious impediment for preventing loss of Earth System resilience. SES resilience that contributes to Earth System resilience is needed to remain in the Holocene state. It should be immediately clear from this example that social change is essential for SES resilience. This is why we incorporate adaptability and the more radical concept of transformability as key ingredients of resilience thinking (Table 1). Adaptability captures the capacity of a SES to learn, combine experience and knowledge, adjust its responses to changing external drivers and internal processes, and continue developing within the current stability domain or basin of attraction (Berkes et al. 2003). Adaptability has been defined as “the capacity of actors in a system to influence resilience” (Walker et al. 2004:5). Thus, adaptive capacity maintains certain processes despite changing internal demands and external forces on the SES (Carpenter and Brock 2008). By contrast, transformability has been defined as “the capacity to create a fundamentally new systemwhen ecological, economic, or social structures make the existing system untenable” (Walker et al. 2004:5). Extending the use of resilience to social–ecological systems makes it possible to explicitly deal with issues raised by Holling (1986) about renewal, novelty, innovation and reorganization in system development and how they interact across scales (Gunderson and Holling 2002). This is an exciting area of explorative work broadening the scope from adaptive management of ecosystem feedbacks to understanding and accounting for the social dimension that creates barriers or bridges for ecosystem stewardship of dynamic landscapes and seascapes in times of change (Gunderson et al. 1995). Are there deeper, slower variables in social systems, such as identity, core values, and worldviews that constrain adaptability? In addition, what are the features of agency, actor groups, social learning, networks, organizations, institutions, governance structures, incentives, political and power relations or ethics that enhance or undermine social–ecological resilience (Folke et al. 2005, Chapin et al. 2006, Smith and Stirling 2010)? How can we assess social– ecological thresholds and regime shifts and what governance challenges do they imply (Norberg and Cumming 2008, Biggs et al. 2009)? Similarly, it helps to broaden the social domain from investigating human action in relation to a certain natural resource, like dairy or fruit production, or environmental issue, like climate change, to the challenge of multilevel collaborative societal responses to a broader set of feedbacks and thresholds in social–ecological systems (Chapin et al. 2009). For example, governance of the Goulburn-Broken catchment in the Murray Darling Basin, Australia has had to solve problems, adapting to change while continuing to develop, connecting the region to global markets. Dryland cropping, grazing, irrigated dairy and fruit production is widespread and the catchment produces one quarter of the State of Victoria’s export earnings (Walker et al. 2009). At a first glance, economically lucrative activities seem to be thriving. But if the analysis is broadened to a social–ecological approach to account for the capacity of the landscape in sustaining the values of the region, the picture looks quite different. Widespread clearing of native vegetation and high levels of water use for irrigation have resulted in rising water tables, creating severe salinization problems; so severe that the region faces serious social–ecological thresholds with possible knock-on effects between them. Crossing such thresholds may result in irreversible changes in the region (Walker et al. 2009). Hence, strategies for adaptability that are socially desirable may lead to vulnerable social–ecological systems and persistent undesirable states such as poverty traps or rigidity traps (Scheffer 2009). Will the adaptability among people and governance of the Goulburn-Broken catchment be sufficient to deal with environmental change, like salinization and interacting thresholds, and avoid being pushed into a poverty trap, or does the social–ecological system need to transform into a new stability landscape, forcing