Ecological resilience
Such perturbations and disturbances can include stochastic events such as fires, flooding, windstorms, insect population explosions, and human activities such as deforestation, fracking of the ground for oil extraction, pesticide sprayed in soil, and the introduction of exotic plant or animal species.
[3] Human activities that adversely affect ecological resilience such as reduction of biodiversity, exploitation of natural resources, pollution, land use, and anthropogenic climate change are increasingly causing regime shifts in ecosystems, often to less desirable and degraded conditions.
[1][2] Ecologists Brian Walker, C S Holling and others describe four critical aspects of resilience: latitude, resistance, precariousness, and panarchy.
[8] Adaptive capacity in socio-ecological systems refers to the ability of humans to deal with change in their environment by observation, learning and altering their interactions.
For example, various elements such as the water cycle, fertility, biodiversity, plant diversity and climate, interact fiercely and affect different systems.
The organic matter (elements carbon and nitrogen) in soil, which is supposed to be recharged by multiple plants, is the main source of nutrients for crop growth.
[9] In response to global food demand and shortages, however, intensive agriculture practices including the application of herbicides to control weeds, fertilisers to accelerate and increase crop growth and pesticides to control insects, reduce plant biodiversity while the supply of organic matter to replenish soil nutrients and prevent surface runoff is diminished.
[9] More sustainable agricultural practices would take into account and estimate the resilience of the land and monitor and balance the input and output of organic matter.
The term deforestation has a meaning that covers crossing the threshold of forest's resilience and losing its ability to return to its originally stable state.
In addition, generally, the resilience of a forest system allows recovery from a relatively small scale of damage (such as lightning or landslide) of up to 10 percent of its area.
[15] One of the negative effects on marine ecosystems is that over the last half-century the stocks of coastal fish have had a huge reduction as a result of overfishing for its economic benefits.
Nevertheless, the key to understanding damage and its importance is whether spill effects result in a downturn in breeding success, productivity, diversity and the overall functioning of the system.
[19] The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution calls nutrient pollution the most widespread, chronic environmental problem in the coastal ocean.
Once nutrient pollution reaches the coastal zone, it stimulates harmful overgrowths of algae, which can have direct toxic effects and ultimately result in low-oxygen conditions.
Zooplankton eat the toxic algae and begin passing the toxins up the food chain, affecting edibles like clams, and ultimately working their way up to seabirds, marine mammals, and humans.
[20] There is increasing awareness that a greater understanding and emphasis of ecosystem resilience is required to reach the goal of sustainable development.
[24] The challenge of applying the concept of ecological resilience to the context of sustainable development is that it sits at odds with conventional economic ideology and policy making.
Scientific research associated with resilience is beginning to play a role in influencing policy-making and subsequent environmental decision making.
"[38] This definition helped form the foundation for the notion of ecological equilibrium: the idea that the behavior of natural ecosystems is dictated by a homeostatic drive towards some stable set point.
Part of the reason resilience began moving away from an equilibrium-centric view and towards a more flexible, malleable description of social-ecological systems was due to work such as that of Andrew Vayda and Bonnie McCay in the field of social anthropology, where more modern versions of resilience were deployed to challenge traditional ideals of cultural dynamics.
