Questions and Answers
What is resilience, as defined by Brian H. Walker?
What are the two key aspects of resilience?
What is a common misconception about resilience?
What is the primary difference between robustness and ecological resilience?
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Why is response diversity important for building resilience?
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What is a potential consequence of overemphasizing robustness?
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Why is exposure to manageable disturbances important for building resilience?
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What is a key characteristic of modularity in building resilience?
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What is a key difference between overconnected and under-connected systems?
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According to Walker, what is the main goal of building resilience?
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What is the main limitation of GDP as a measure of economic success?
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What is the benefit of 'response diversity' in building resilience?
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Why is 'guiding, not steering' an important principle of resilience?
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What is 'multi-scale thinking' in the context of resilience?
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Why is it important to allow for 'exposure to a variety of conditions' in building resilience?
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What is the main difference between 'specific' and 'general' resilience?
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Study Notes
Resilience: Concept and Misconceptions
- Resilience is the capacity of a system to absorb disturbances and maintain its basic structure and functions.
- It involves two key aspects:
- Avoiding tipping points: recognizing and avoiding thresholds that could push a system into an undesirable state.
- Building general resilience: ensuring systems have attributes that allow them to cope with a wide range of disturbances.
Misconceptions About Resilience
- Resilience isn't inherently good: harmful states, such as dictatorships or degraded environments, can also be resilient.
- Resilience is more than "bouncing back": it involves adapting and reorganizing, not just returning to a previous state.
Resilience vs. Robustness
- Robustness refers to resisting change and maintaining stability (engineering resilience), which is different from ecological resilience.
- Overemphasizing robustness can reduce overall resilience.
Building Resilience
- Response diversity: systems should have multiple ways to perform essential functions, with different capacities to handle various disturbances.
- Exposure to disturbances: protection from all disturbances can reduce resilience; exposure to manageable disturbances helps systems maintain their adaptive capacities.
- Modularity: systems need the right balance of connectivity to avoid rapid failures or slow reactions to crises.
- Quick response to changes: systems should be able to respond swiftly to shocks.
- Willingness to transform: sometimes, fundamental changes are necessary to continue delivering value.
- Multi-scale thinking: resilience cannot be understood or managed at a single scale; cross-scale interactions are crucial.
- Guiding, not steering: resilience involves keeping options open and learning to guide systems within a range of desirable states.
Conclusion and Key Points
- Resilience is about learning to change in order to avoid being changed in undesirable ways.
- It requires considering both specific and general resilience, allowing exposure to a variety of conditions, and sometimes making deliberate transformations.
- Building resilience requires a balanced approach, considering both specific threats and general capacities across all parts of the system.
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Description
Learn about the concept of resilience, its definition, and how it's often misinterpreted. Brian H. Walker's editorial provides a clear understanding based on decades of research.