Resiliency
This virtual organization was created to provide fundamental and applied knowledge of the climate-energy-human health system. How local and regional governments respond to develop policies and programs to respond, adapat and mitigate these issues is dependent on how societies are resilient to these changes.
As presented by Tompkins and Adger (2003) and Pimm (1984), resilience is traditionally referred to the single state equilibrium of an ecosystem, where emphasis was placed on resistance to disturbance and speed of return to the equilibrium state (Pimm, 1984).
The Resilience Alliance “http://www.resalliance.org” defines resilience as applied to integrated systems of people and nature as:
a) the amount of disturbance a system can absorb and still remain within the same state or domain of attraction,
b) the degree to which the system is capable of self-organization (versus lack of organization, or organization forced by external factors), and
c) the degree to which the system can build and increase the capacity for learning and adaptation.
Another definition by Folke et al., (2002) is:
“….resilience for social-ecological systems is often referred to as related to three different characteristics:
(a) the magnitude of shock that the system can absorb and remain in within a given state;
(b) the degree to which the system is capable of self-organization, and,
(c) the degree to which the system can build capacity for learning and adaptation.
Community members of our Virtual Organization will undertake research to understand in an Urban context how communities can become more resilient at times of uncertanity and vulnerability due to climate change.
