A resilience approach to the future

Brian Walker

looming threats

- climate change- peak oil, energy prices

- food shortages and prices- water shortages and wars (Tibet / China)- new and old diseases, pandemics- social unrest /terrorism- increasing connectedness (globalisation, financial risk correlation)- increasing numbers of people with increasing aspirations

“Rising Above The Gathering Storm” (USA Academies 2008)

- the need for investment in science and innovation

less and less room to manoeuvre

more and more need for ability to absorb shocks – for resilience

Resilience “the ability of a system to absorb disturbance and re-organise so as to retain the same structure, function, feedbacks and identity”

resilience places an emphasis on the limits to change

it puts a focus on thresholds (tipping points) between alternate states, or ‘regimes’, of a system

the water table rises as trees are cleared

a threshold occurs at a depth of 2m

bio

ph

ysic

al

Water table depth

Area salinized Riverine ecosystem condition

Native veg cover and biodiversity

eco

no

mic

Farm financial viability Size of dairy & fruit

processing sectors

Water infrastructure state

soci

al

Values (e.g. environment vs. agriculture) – water allocations

Farm/ landscape Landscape/catchment Region/ nation Shocks and slow drivers

climate change

long run energy cost

technology

markets

population (demand)

diseases

governance

Tree cover and water table equilibrium (E/T)

9 thresholds in the Goulburn-Broken catchment

- the cost of maintaining resilience vs. the cost of not maintaining it

resilience vs. efficiency

- ‘specified’ (targeted) resilience, vs. ‘general’ resilience

Applying a resilience approach

- resilience is maintained by probing its boundaries

what determines resilience?

- diversity - modularity- tightness of feedbacks- openness – immigration, inflows, outflows- reserves and other reservoirs (memory,

seedbanks, nutrient pools)- overlapping governance/institutions

The Longford gas explosion

in Shepparton:25 million litres of milk poured away- no alternate power source for pasteurisation machinery (no “response diversity”)

“resilience” –

“adaptability” – capacity to manage resilience; avoid thresholds(leadership, trust, ‘social capital’, governance)

if a shift into a “bad” state has happened, or is inevitable, the only option is transformation

“transformability” - capacity to transform into a different kind of system; a new way of living, and making a living

(the first rule of holes!)

determinants of transformability

- preparedness to change - capacity to change- options for change

Where do we need to enhance resilience of existing systems?

Where do we need to transform?

A resilience approach to the future

- don’t aim for some “optimal” state- learn about thresholds and aim to avoid them- let the system self-organise within the range of acceptable states (‘command-and-control’ doesn’t work for very long)- maintain general resilience and embrace change- promote and sustain diversity, of all kinds- restrict control of environmental and ecological variability- be ready for and capable of transformational change- encourage learning, innovation and experiments- beware of partial solutions!