Ecosystem And Territorial Resilience

Ecosystem and Territorial Resilience: A Geoprospective Approach provides a full review of the geoprospective approach and how it can be used in planning for and implementing environmental and territorial resilience measures. The geoprospective approach is a way to predict and assess for future risks, and is a comprehensive method for identifying and addressing potential change impacts. In addition to the main concepts and methods of this approach, the book presents applications and case studies for different spatio-temporal scales and problems related to the degradation of socio-ecosystems, as well as applying the geoprospective approach to environmental and urban planning.The book offers an interdisciplinary perspective, tying in concepts and techniques from geography, including spatial analysis methods, modelling, and GIS, to address issues of ecological impacts of climate change, urban risk and resilience, land use changes, coastal impacts, and sustainable development and potential of adaptability. This book is a unique and integral resource for policy makers, environmental and territorial managers, scientists, engineers, consultants, and graduate students interested in anticipating future change in socio-ecosystems. Introduces the geoprospective approach to assess the impact of global changes on socio-ecosystems, and potential risk situations for ecosystems and society Includes geographical techniques such as spatial analysis methods, modeling, and GIS to address various climate change issues and to detect vulnerabilities vs adaptive capacities of spatial systems Provides case studies as well as interviews with planners and policy makers regarding their views on territorial planning and expectations of the geoprospective

Ecosystems of Resilience Practices: Contributions for Sustainability and Climate Change Adaptation focuses on resilience in action by exploring and providing approaches, perspectives, toolboxes, and theoretical discourses for the improvement and enhancement of territorial and community resilience practices towards sustainability and climate change mitigation/adaptation. The book develops a set of tools and design criteria to support the dissemination of resilience practices. This new toolset will support the expansion and reinforcement of resilience practices and the building of solutions related to climate change. The book is divided into three sections: Section one investigates the contribution this kind of resilience approach could have on sustainable development goals as related to climate change. It also includes other environmental challenges such as ecosystem resilience in the face of climate change. Chapters dedicated to exploring the issues for a renovated governance of territorial transformation processes are included. Section two focuses on the eco-systems of resilience practices characterization, including discourses on international networking of transitions initiatives. Section three presents operative guidelines, instruments, and proposals for the resilience practices "stabilization," "blooming," and "up scaling," aiming at a more effective and consistent contribution of resilience practices in reaching sustainability, adaptation goals, and scenarios at local and global scales. Focuses on resilience practices, including effective transformation processes providing an overview of practices goals, sectors, and solutions to problems raised Includes toolboxes and solutions showing the reader a systematic and stable approach, moving from a conceptual framework to actual practice Presents a multilevel and multidisciplinary approach, allowing the reader to understand how to integrate and reconnect discourses on risk management, climate change, and social, economic, and creative innovation

Environmental law envisions ecological systems as existing in an equilibrium state, reinforcing a rigid legal framework unable to absorb rapid environmental changes and innovations in sustainability. For the past four decades, "resilience theory," which embraces uncertainty and nonlinear dynamics in complex adaptive systems, has provided a robust, invaluable foundation for sound environmental management. Reforming American law to incorporate this knowledge is the key to sustainability. This volume features top legal and resilience scholars speaking on resilience theory and its legal applications to climate change, biodiversity, national parks, and water law.

Ecological resilience provides a theoretical foundation for understanding how complex systems adapt to and recover from localized disturbances like hurricanes, fires, pest outbreaks, and floods, as well as large-scale perturbations such as climate change. Ecologists have developed resilience theory over the past three decades in an effort to explain surprising and nonlinear dynamics of complex adaptive systems. Resilience theory is especially important to environmental scientists for its role in underpinning adaptive management approaches to ecosystem and resource management. Foundations of Ecological Resilience is a collection of the most important articles on the subject of ecological resilience—those writings that have defined and developed basic concepts in the field and help explain its importance and meaning for scientists and researchers. The book’s three sections cover articles that have shaped or defined the concepts and theories of resilience, including key papers that broke new conceptual ground and contributed novel ideas to the field; examples that demonstrate ecological resilience in a range of ecosystems; and articles that present practical methods for understanding and managing nonlinear ecosystem dynamics. Foundations of Ecological Resilience is an important contribution to our collective understanding of resilience and an invaluable resource for students and scholars in ecology, wildlife ecology, conservation biology, sustainability, environmental science, public policy, and related fields.

This book explores one indigenous society and how they managed to live sustainably with their ecosystems for over two thousand years, showing how human systems connect environmental ethics and sustainable ecological practices through institutions.

The evolution of land space demonstrates the shift of land use types from natural and semi-natural land (e.g., forest land and cropland) to built-up land, altering ecosystem cycling patterns and leading to degradation of ecosystem services in terms of regulation, provisioning and support. At the same time, production and living space crowding out ecological space brings high potential threats, such as soil erosion, forest productivity decline and habitat fragmentation. Accordingly, in response to the problems of imbalanced territorial space development, inefficient resource utilization and ecological environment degradation, how to improve the diversity, stability and sustainability of ecosystems is an urgent issue to promote modernization and green development in the new era of territorial space evolution.

In the same realm as social ecology, industrial ecology and the circular economy, a new interdisciplinary field is growing: territorial ecology. Based on the analysis of the metabolism of human societies at a local level, it helps us diagnose a socioecosystem. This diagnostic is not only based on what is circulating, but also on how it is organized and why. Who is at the origin of a flow? What are their motivations? Who has the power to make decisions about it? This methodology, taking into account both the material description of human societies and the analysis of decisionmaking processes, might also be relevant for territorial diagnostics. It leads us to a systemic view of the consequences of individual and collective actions on the sustainability of local socio ecosystems. Socio-ecological transition implies a substantial evolution of human societies. Innovation, be it technological, organizational or social, is intrinsically involved in this evolution. However, if transition calls for disruptive rather than incremental innovations, we must also assess these innovations with a systemic view of their consequences.

Global environmental change is occurring at a rate faster than humans have ever experienced. Climate change and the loss of ecosystem services are the two main global environmental crises facing us today. As a result, there is a need for better understanding of the specific and general resilience of networked ecosystems, cities, organisations and institutions to cope with change. In this book, an international team of experts provide cutting-edge insights into building the resilience and adaptive governance of complex social-ecological systems. Through a set of case studies, it focuses on the social science dimension of ecosystem management in the context of global change, in a move to bridge existing gaps between resilience, sustainability and social science. Using empirical examples ranging from local to global levels, views from a variety of disciplines are integrated to provide an essential resource for scholars, policy-makers and students, seeking innovative approaches to governance.

The world is undergoing unprecedented changes in many of the factors that determine its fundamental properties and their in- ence on society. These changes include climate; the chemical c- position of the atmosphere; the demands of a growing human population for food and ?ber; and the mobility of organisms, ind- trial products, cultural perspectives, and information ?ows. The magnitude and widespread nature of these changes pose serious challenges in managing the ecosystem services on which society depends. Moreover, many of these changes are strongly in?uenced by human activities, so future patterns of change will continue to be in?uenced by society’s choices and governance. The purpose of this book is to provide a new framework for n- ural resource management—a framework based on stewardship of ecosystems for human well-being in a world dominated by unc- tainty and change. The goal of ecosystem stewardship is to respond to and shape change in social-ecological systems in order to s- tain the supply and opportunities for use of ecosystem services by society. The book links recent advances in the theory of resilience, sustainability, and vulnerability with practical issues of ecosystem management and governance. The book is aimed at advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students of natural resource management as well as professional managers, community leaders, and policy makers with backgrounds in a wide array of d- ciplines, including ecology, policy studies, economics, sociology, and anthropology.