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81-575: Resilience-based ecosystem stewardship emphasizes resilience as an integral feature of responding to and interacting with the environment in a constantly changing world. Resilience refers to the ability of a system to recover from disturbance and return to its basic function and structure. For example, ecosystems do not serve as singular resources but rather are function-dependent in providing an array of ecosystem services . Additionally, this type of stewardship recognizes resource managers and management systems as influential and informed participants in

162-432: A basic feature of its normal function. The extent of damage can therefore be difficult to detect against this background variability. 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. Spills are not the only pressure on marine habitats; chronic urban and industrial contamination or

243-462: A biocultural conservation perspective, Ricardo Rozzi and collaborators propose participatory intercultural approaches to earth stewardship. This perspective emphasizes the role of long-term socio-ecological research (LTSER) sites in coordinating local initiatives with global networking and implementing culturally diverse earth stewardship forms. Many programs, partnerships, and funding initiatives have tried to implement environmental stewardship into

324-644: A combination of farming and cattle grazing, loss of semi-nomad traditions, extension of infrastructure, reduction of managerial flexibility and other economic factors, it is controversial because it has been difficult to determine whether there is indeed a regime shift and which drivers have caused it. For example, poverty has been proposed as a driver of dry land degradation, but studies continuously find contradictory evidence. Ecosystem services affected by dry land degradation usually include low biomass productivity, thus reducing provisioning and supporting services for agriculture and water cycling. Polar regions have been

405-590: A conference organized by IMO. Meanwhile, IMO in 1965 set up a Subcommittee on Oil Pollution, under the auspices of its Maritime Safety committee, to address oil pollution issues. The threat of oil spills to marine life is recognised by those likely to be responsible for the pollution, such as the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation: The marine ecosystem is highly complex and natural fluctuations in species composition , abundance and distribution are

486-606: A diversity of approaches and scholarly debates. 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. Resilience questions the free market model within which global markets operate. Inherent to the successful operation of a free market is specialisation which is required to achieve efficiency and increase productivity. This very act of specialisation weakens resilience by permitting systems to become accustomed to and dependent upon their prevailing conditions. In

567-512: A forest ecosystem needs suitable interactions among climate conditions and bio-actions, and enough area. 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. The larger the scale of damage, the more difficult it is for the forest ecosystem to restore and maintain its balance. Deforestation also decreases biodiversity of both plant and animal life and can lead to an alteration of

648-574: A particular problem, one has to conceptually limit its range of dynamics by fixing analytical categories such as time and space scales, range of variations and exogenous / endogenous processes. For example, while for oceanographers a regime must last for at least decades and should include climate variability as a driver, for marine biologists regimes of only five years are acceptable and could be induced by only population dynamics. A non-exhaustive range of current definitions of regime shifts in recent scientific literature from ecology and allied fields

729-502: A question has been explored separately in different disciplines for different systems, pushing methods development forward (e.g. climate driven regime shifts in the ocean or the stability of food webs ) and continuing to inspire new research. Regime shift research is occurring across multiple ecosystems and at multiple scales. New areas of research include early warnings of regime shifts and new forms of modeling. It remains unclear how well such signals work for all regime shifts, and if

810-399: A regime shift has occurred. Such analyses require long term data series and that the threshold under study has to be crossed. Hence, the answer will depend on the quality of the data; it is event-driven and only allows one to explore past trends. Some scholars have argued based on statistical analysis of time series that certain phenomena do not correspond to regime shifts. Nevertheless,

891-490: A significant number of species is removed and their ecological function is lost. It has been estimated by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation that over 70% of the world's fish stocks are either fully exploited or depleted which means overfishing threatens marine ecosystem resilience and this is mostly by rapid growth of fishing technology. One of the negative effects on marine ecosystems

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972-460: A single disturbance (external shocks) triggers a completely different system behavior. Although such non-linear changes have been widely studied in different disciplines ranging from atoms to climate dynamics, regime shifts have gained importance in ecology because they can substantially affect the flow of ecosystem services that societies rely upon, such as provision of food, clean water or climate regulation. Moreover, regime shift occurrence

1053-438: A system has only one regime, when plausible alternative regimes have highly negative consequences. On the other hand, a more relevant question than "has a regime shift occurred?" is "is the system prone to regime shifts?". This question is important because, even if they have shown smooth change in the past, their dynamics can potentially become abrupt or discontinuous in the future depending on its parameters' configuration. Such

1134-513: A threshold is a point at which there is an abrupt change in an ecosystem quality, property or phenomenon; or where small changes in an environmental driver produce large responses in an ecosystem. Thresholds are, however, a function of several interacting parameters, thus they change in time and space. Hence, the same system can present smooth, abrupt or discontinuous change depending on its parameters' configurations. Thresholds will be present, however, only in cases where abrupt and discontinuous change

1215-449: A turbid water regime, which provides reduced ecosystem services and can produce toxic algae blooms . The regime or state is dependent upon lake phosphorus cycles , and either regime can be resilient dependent upon the lake's ecology and management. Likewise, Mulga woodlands of Australia can exist in a grass-rich regime that supports sheep herding, or a shrub-dominated regime of no value for sheep grazing. Regime shifts are driven by

1296-559: A wide variety of ecosystems and across a range of scales. For example, at the local scale, one of the best documented examples is woody plant encroachment , which is thought to follow a smooth change dynamic. Woody encroachment refers to small changes in herbivory rates that can shift drylands from grassy dominated regimes towards woody dominated savannas. Encroachment has been documented to impact ecosystem services related with cattle ranching in wet savannas in Africa and South America. At

1377-421: Is adaptive capacity , which is the property of an ecosystem that describes change in stability landscapes and resilience. 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. Resilience refers to ecosystem's stability and capability of tolerating disturbance and restoring itself.  If

1458-419: Is trophic level decline in food webs . It usually implies the shift from ecosystems dominated by high numbers of predatory fish to a regime dominated by lower trophic groups like pelagic planktivores (i.e. jellyfish). Affected food webs often have impacts on fisheries productivity, a major risk of eutrophication , hypoxia , invasion of non-native species and impacts on recreational values. Hypoxia, or

1539-418: Is a movement which causes wide concern in environmental and social forums and which Clive Hamilton describes as "the growth fetish". The purpose of ecological resilience that is proposed is ultimately about averting our extinction as Walker cites Holling in his paper: "[..] "resilience is concerned with [measuring] the probabilities of extinction” (1973, p. 20)". Becoming more apparent in academic writing

1620-415: Is also dependent upon the resilience of terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems. These include agriculture, deforestation, pollution, mining, recreation, overfishing, dumping of waste into the sea and climate change. Agriculture can be used as a significant case study in which the resilience of terrestrial ecosystems should be considered. The organic matter (elements carbon and nitrogen) in soil, which

1701-502: Is collected in Table 1. Table 1. Definitions of regime shifts and modifications used to apply the concept to particular research questions from scientific literature published between 2004 and 2009. The theoretical basis for regime shifts has been developed from the mathematics of non-linear systems. In short, regime shifts describe dynamics characterized by the possibility that a small disturbance can produce big effects. In such situations

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1782-473: Is defined are closely interrelated in the way that they influence environmental policy-making, legislation and subsequently environmental management. The ability of ecosystems to recover from certain levels of environmental impact is not explicitly noted in legislation, however, because of ecosystem resilience, some levels of environmental impact associated with development are made permissible by environmental policy-making and ensuing legislation. Some examples of

1863-430: Is diminished. This leads to a reduction in soil fertility and productivity. 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. To recover itself,

1944-496: Is drawn by Perman et al. who use resilience to describe one of 6 concepts of sustainability ; "A sustainable state is one which satisfies minimum conditions for ecosystem resilience through time". Resilience science has been evolving over the past decade, expanding beyond ecology to reflect systems of thinking in fields such as economics and political science . And, as more and more people move into densely populated cities, using massive amounts of water, energy, and other resources,

2025-399: Is driven by nutrient inputs, particularly those coming from fertilizers used in agriculture. It is an example of discontinuous change with hysteresis. Once the lake has shifted to a murky water regime, a new feedback of phosphorus recycling maintains the system in the eutrophic state even if nutrient inputs are significantly reduced. Another example widely studied in aquatic and marine systems

2106-469: Is expected to increase as human influence on the planet increases – the Anthropocene  – including current trends on human induced climate change and biodiversity loss . When regime shifts are associated with a critical or bifurcation point , they may also be referred to as critical transitions . Scholars have been interested in systems exhibiting non-linear change for a long time. Since

2187-475: Is possible. Empirical evidence has increasingly completed model based work on regime shifts. Early work on regime shifts in ecology was developed in models for predation, grazing, fisheries and inset outbreak dynamics. Since the 1980s, further development of models has been complemented by empirical evidence for regime shifts from ecosystems including kelp forest , coral reefs , drylands and lakes . Scholars have collected evidence for regime shifts across

2268-542: Is reinforcing climate warming through the albedo feedback, potentially affecting sea water levels and climate regulation worldwide. Aquatic systems have been heavily studied in the search for regime shifts. Lakes work like microcosms (almost closed systems ) that to some extent allow experimentation and data gathering. Eutrophication is a well-documented abrupt change from clear water to murky water regimes, which leads to toxic algae blooms and reduction of fish productivity in lakes and coastal ecosystems. Eutrophication

2349-462: Is supposed to be recharged by multiple plants, is the main source of nutrients for crop growth. 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

2430-404: 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. Blue fin tuna is at particular risk of extinction. Depletion of fish stocks results in lowered biodiversity and consequently imbalance in the food chain, and increased vulnerability to disease. In addition to overfishing, coastal communities are suffering

2511-407: Is the development of new approaches to modeling. Dynamic models , Bayesian belief networks , Fisher information , and fuzzy cognitive maps have been used as a tool to explore the phase space where regime shifts are likely to happen and understand the dynamics that govern dynamic thresholds. Models are useful oversimplifications of reality, whose limits are given by the current understanding of

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2592-428: Is the significance of the environment and resilience in sustainable development. Folke et al state that the likelihood of sustaining development is raised by "Managing for resilience" whilst Perman et al. propose that safeguarding the environment to "deliver a set of services" should be a "necessary condition for an economy to be sustainable". The growing application of resilience to sustainable development has produced

2673-1013: The National Recreation and Park Association 's efforts to place environmental stewardship at the forefront of childhood development and youths' consciousness of the outdoors. Practicing environmental stewardship has also been suggested as an effective mental health treatment and natural therapy. Based on pro-organizational stewardship theory principles, environmental stewards can be categorized into three roles: doers, donors, and practitioners. Doers actively engage in environmental aid, such as volunteering for hands-on work like cleaning up oil spills. Donors support causes financially or through gifts in kind , including fundraising or personal donations. Practitioners work daily in environmental stewardship, acting as advocates in collaboration with various environmental agencies and groups. All three roles contribute to promoting environmental literacy and encouraging participation in conservation efforts. From

2754-401: The "shift towards ecological sustainability" as an alternative approach to that of sustainable development. Because climate change is a major and growing driver of biodiversity loss , and that biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, significantly contribute to climate change adaptation , mitigation and disaster risk reduction, proponents of ecosystem-based adaptation suggest that

2835-425: The cleaning of cargo tanks.  In the 1950s, the normal practice was simply to wash the tanks out with water and then pump the resulting mixture of oil and water into the sea. OILPOL 54   prohibited the dumping of oily wastes within a certain distance from land and in 'special areas' where the danger to the environment was especially acute. In 1962 the limits were extended by means of an amendment adopted at

2916-522: The climatic conditions of an entire area. According to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report , carbon emissions due to land use and land use changes predominantly come from deforestation, thereby increasing the long-term exposure of forest ecosystems to drought and other climate change-induced damages. Deforestation can also lead to species extinction, which can have a domino effect particularly when keystone species are removed or when

2997-410: The coast and overfishing. Overfishing and overharvest of keystone predators, such as sea otters , applies top-down pressure on the system. Bottom-up pressure arises from nutrient pollution . Soil salinization is an example of a well-known regime shift in terrestrial systems. It is driven by the removal of deep root vegetation and irrigation, which causes elevation of the soil water table and

3078-482: The common notion of proportionality between inputs and outputs of a system is incorrect. Conversely, the regime shift concept also emphasizes the resilience of systems – suggesting that in some situations substantial management or human impact can have little effect on a system. Regime shifts are hard to reverse and in some cases irreversible. The regime shift concept shifts analytical attention away from linearity and predictability, towards reorganization and surprise. Thus,

3159-407: The concept of sustainable development is no longer adequate in assisting policy development fit for today's global challenges and objectives. This is because the concept of sustainable development is "based on weak sustainability " which doesn't take account of the reality of "limits to earth's resilience". Ross draws on the impact of climate change on the global agenda as a fundamental factor in

3240-465: The conditions at which the change first occurred. This occurs because systemic change alters feedback processes that maintain a system in a particular regime. Second, hysteresis greatly enhances the role of history in a system, and demonstrates that the system has memory – in that its dynamics are shaped by past events. Conditions at which a system shifts its dynamics from one set of processes to another are often called thresholds. In ecology for example,

3321-405: The configuration of processes that define a system – in particular the interaction between a system's fast and slow processes. Smooth change can be described by a quasi-linear relationship between fast and slow processes; abrupt change shows a non-linear relationship among fast and slow variables, while discontinuous change is characterized by the difference in the trajectory on the fast variable when

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3402-505: The consideration of ecosystem resilience within legislation include: The theoretical basis for many of the ideas central to climate resilience have actually existed since the 1960s. Originally an idea defined for strictly ecological systems, resilience in ecology was initially outlined by C.S. Holling as the capacity for ecological systems and relationships within those systems to persist and absorb changes to " state variables , driving variables, and parameters." This definition helped form

3483-458: The development of so-called death zones, is another regime shift in aquatic and marine-coastal environments. Hypoxia, similarly to eutrophication, is driven by nutrient inputs of anthropogenic origin but also from natural origin in the form of upwellings . In high nutrient concentrations the levels of dissolved oxygen decrease, making life impossible for the majority of aquatic organisms. Impacts on ecosystem services include collapse of fisheries and

3564-431: The difficulty of demonstrating bi-stability, their reliance on simulation models, and lack of high quality long-term data. However, by the 1990s more substantial evidence of regime shifts was collected for kelp forest , coral reefs , drylands and shallow lakes. This work led to revitalization of research on ecological reorganization and the conceptual clarification that resulted in the regime shift conceptual framework in

3645-541: The dispersive nature of the oceans and adaptive nature and ability for marine life to process the marine debris and contaminants. However, waste dumping threatens marine ecosystems by poisoning marine life and eutrophication . According to the International Maritime Organisation oil spills can have serious effects on marine life. The OILPOL Convention recognized that most oil pollution resulted from routine shipboard operations such as

3726-599: The disturbance is of sufficient magnitude or duration, a threshold may be reached where the ecosystem undergoes a regime shift , possibly permanently. Sustainable use of environmental goods and services requires understanding and consideration of the resilience of the ecosystem and its limits. However, the elements which influence ecosystem resilience are complicated. For example, various elements such as the  water cycle , fertility, biodiversity , plant diversity and climate, interact fiercely and affect different systems. There are many areas where human activity impacts upon and

3807-685: The early 2000s. Outside of ecology, similar concepts of non-linear change have been developed in other academic disciplines. One example is historical institutionalism in political science , sociology and economics , where concepts like path dependency and critical junctures are used to explain phenomena where the output of a system is determined by its history, or the initial conditions, and where its domains of attraction are reinforced by feedbacks. Concept such as international institutional regimes , socio-technical transitions and increasing returns have an epistemological basis similar to regime shifts, and utilize similar mathematical models. During

3888-434: The early twentieth century, mathematicians have developed a body of concepts and theory for the study of such phenomena based on the study of non-linear system dynamics. This research led to the development of concepts such as catastrophe theory ; a branch of bifurcation theory in dynamical systems. In ecology the idea of systems with multiple regimes, domains of attraction called alternative stable states , only arose in

3969-439: The early warnings give time enough to take appropriate managerial corrections to avoid the shift. Additionally, early warning signals also depend on intensive good-quality data series that are rare in ecology. However, researchers have used high quality data to predict regime shifts in a lake ecosystem. Changes in spatial patterns as an indicator of regime shifts have also become a topic of research. Another front of research

4050-662: The event of unanticipated shocks; this dependency reduces the ability of the system to adapt to these changes. Correspondingly; Perman et al. note that; "Some economic activities appear to reduce resilience, so that the level of disturbance to which the ecosystem can be subjected to without parametric change taking place is reduced". Berkes and Folke table a set of principles to assist with "building resilience and sustainability" which consolidate approaches of adaptive management , local knowledge-based management practices and conditions for institutional learning and self-organisation. More recently, it has been suggested by Andrea Ross that

4131-482: The evolution of novel characteristics. This new perspective of resilience as a concept that inherently works synergistically with elements of uncertainty and entropy first began to facilitate changes in the field of adaptive management and environmental resources, through work whose basis was built by Holling and colleagues yet again. By the mid 1970s, resilience began gaining momentum as an idea in anthropology , culture theory , and other social sciences . There

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4212-717: The exploitation of the resources they provide are also serious threats. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution calls nutrient pollution the most widespread, chronic environmental problem in the coastal ocean. The discharges of nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients come from agriculture, waste disposal, coastal development, and fossil fuel use. 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. Certain types of algae are toxic. Overgrowths of these algae result in harmful algal blooms , which are more colloquially referred to as "red tides" or "brown tides". Zooplankton eat

4293-521: The focus on research examining the impacts of climate warming. Regime shifts in polar regions include the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and the possible collapse of the thermohaline circulation system. While the melting of the Greenland ice sheet is driven by global warming and threatens worldwide coastlines with an increase of sea level, the collapse of the thermohaline circulation is driven by

4374-602: 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. Under this school of thought (which maintained quite a dominant status during this time period), ecosystems were perceived to respond to disturbances largely through negative feedback systems – if there is a change, the ecosystem would act to mitigate that change as much as possible and attempt to return to its prior state. As greater amounts of scientific research in ecological adaptation and natural resource management

4455-853: The ground for oil extraction, pesticide sprayed in soil, and the introduction of exotic plant or animal species. Disturbances of sufficient magnitude or duration can profoundly affect an ecosystem and may force an ecosystem to reach a threshold beyond which a different regime of processes and structures predominates. When such thresholds are associated with a critical or bifurcation point , these regime shifts may also be referred to as critical transitions . 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. Interdisciplinary discourse on resilience now includes consideration of

4536-406: The impacts of growing numbers of large commercial fishing vessels in causing reductions of small local fishing fleets. Many local lowland rivers which are sources of fresh water have become degraded because of the inflows of pollutants and sediments. Dumping both depends upon ecosystem resilience whilst threatening it. Dumping of sewage and other contaminants into the ocean is often undertaken for

4617-563: The increase of fresh water in the North Atlantic which in turn weakens the density driven water transport between the tropics and polar areas. Both regime shifts have serious implications for marine biodiversity, water cycling, security of housing and infrastructure and climate regulation amongst other ecosystem services. Using current well-known statistical methods such as average standard deviates , principal component analysis , or artificial neural networks one can detect whether

4698-475: The increase of soil surface salinity. Once the system flips, ecosystem services related with food production – both crops and cattle – are significantly reduced. Dryland degradation , also known as desertification , is a well-known but controversial type of regime shift. Dryland degradation occurs when the loss of vegetation transforms an ecosystem from being vegetated to being dominated by bare soils. While this shift has been proposed to be driven by

4779-399: The interaction of fire , herbivory , and variable rainfall. Either state can be resilient dependent upon management. Ecologists Brian Walker , C S Holling and others describe four critical aspects of resilience: latitude , resistance , precariousness , and panarchy . The first three can apply both to a whole system or the sub-systems that make it up. Closely linked to resilience

4860-412: The interactions of humans and ecosystems via socio-ecological systems, and the need for shift from the maximum sustainable yield paradigm to environmental resource management and ecosystem management , which aim to build ecological resilience through "resilience analysis, adaptive resource management, and adaptive governance". Ecological resilience has inspired other fields and continues to challenge

4941-424: The last decades, research on regime shift has grown exponentially. Academic papers reported by ISI Web of Knowledge rose from less than 5 per year prior to 1990 to more than 300 per year from 2007 to 2011. However, the application of regime shift related concepts is still contested. Although there is not agreement on one definition, the slight differences among definitions reside on the meaning of stability  –

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5022-570: The late '60s based upon the first reflections on the meaning of stability in ecosystems by Richard Lewontin and Crawford "Buzz" Holling . The first work on regime shifts in ecosystems was done in a diversity of ecosystems and included important work by Noy-Meir (1975) in grazing systems ; May (1977) in grazing systems, harvesting systems, insect pests and host- parasitoid systems; Jones and Walters (1976) with fisheries systems; and Ludwig et al. (1978) with insect outbreaks . These early efforts to understand regime shifts were criticized for

5103-400: The measure of what a regime is – and the meaning of abruptness. Both depend on the definition of the system under study, thus it is relative. At the end it is a matter of scale. Mass extinctions are regime shifts on the geological time scale , while financial crises or pest outbreaks are regime shifts that require a totally different parameter setting. In order to apply the concept to

5184-420: The natural systems that are serviced by humans. Studies have explored the benefits of environmental stewardship in various contexts such as the evaluation, modeling, and integration into policy, system management, and urban planning. One study examined how social attributes of environmental stewardship can be used to reconfigure local conservation efforts. Social ties to environmental stewardship are emphasized by

5265-491: The need to combine these disciplines to consider the resilience of urban ecosystems and cities is of paramount importance. The interdependence of ecological and social systems has gained renewed recognition since the late 1990s by academics including Berkes and Folke and developed further in 2002 by Folke et al. As the concept of sustainable development has evolved beyond the 3 pillars of sustainable development to place greater political emphasis on economic development. This

5346-444: The other hand, kelp forests are highly productive marine ecosystems found in temperate regions of the ocean. Kelp forests are characteristically dominated by brown macroalgae and host high levels of biodiversity, providing provisioning ecosystem services for both the cosmetic industry and fisheries. Such services are substantially reduced when a kelp forest shifts towards urchin barren regimes driven mainly by discharge of nutrients from

5427-646: The production of toxic gases for humans. In marine systems, two well-studied regime shifts happen in coral reefs and kelp forests. Coral reefs are three-dimensional structures which work as habitat for marine biodiversity. Hard coral-dominated reefs can shift to a regime dominated by fleshy algae; but they also have been reported to shift towards soft-corals, corallimorpharians, urchin barrens or sponge-dominated regimes. Coral reef transitions are reported to affect ecosystem services like calcium fixation, water cleansing, support for biodiversity, fisheries productivity, coastline protection and recreational services. On

5508-444: The real system as well as the assumptions of the modeler. Therefore, a deep understanding of causal relationships and the strength of feedbacks is required to capture possible regime shift dynamics. Nevertheless, such deep understanding is available only for heavily studied systems such as shallow lakes. Methods development is required to tackle the problem of limited time series data and limited understanding of system dynamics , in such

5589-444: The regime shift concept offers a framework to explore the dynamics and causal explanations of non-linear change in nature and society. Regime shifts are triggered either by the weakening of stabilizing internal processes – feedbacks  – or by external shocks which exceed the stabilizing capacity of a system. Systems prone to regime shifts can show three different types of change: smooth, abrupt or discontinuous, depending on

5670-487: The regional scale, rainforest areas in the Amazon and East Asia are thought to be at risk of shifting towards savanna regimes given the weakening of the moisture recycling feedback driven by deforestation . The shift from forest to savanna potentially affects the provision of food, fresh water, climate regulation and support for biodiversity. On the global realm, the faster retreating of the arctic ice sheet in summer time

5751-418: The resilience of vulnerable human populations and the ecosystem services upon which they depend are critical factors for sustainable development in a changing climate. Scientific research associated with resilience is beginning to play a role in influencing policy-making and subsequent environmental decision making. This occurs in a number of ways: Ecological resilience and the thresholds by which resilience

5832-400: The slow one increases compared to when it decreases. In other words, the point at which the system flips from one regime to another is different from the point at which the system flips back. Systems that exhibit this last type of change demonstrate hysteresis . Hysteretic systems have two important properties. First, the reversal of discontinuous change requires that a system change back past

5913-443: The statistical rejection of the hypothesis that a system has multiple attractors does not imply that the null hypothesis is true. In order to do so one has to prove that the system only has one attractor. In other words, evidence that data does not exhibit multiple regimes does not rule out the possibility a system could shift to an alternative regime in the future. Moreover, in management decision making, it can be risky to assume that

5994-433: The structure and function of ecosystems , the climate , financial systems or other complex systems . A regime is a characteristic behaviour of a system which is maintained by mutually reinforced processes or feedbacks . Regimes are considered persistent relative to the time period over which the shift occurs. The change of regimes, or the shift, usually occurs when a smooth change in an internal process ( feedback ) or

6075-400: 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. The result can be illness and sometimes death. There is increasing awareness that a greater understanding and emphasis of ecosystem resilience is required to reach the goal of sustainable development . A similar conclusion

6156-444: The way they interpret resilience, e.g. supply chain resilience . The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report defines resilience as, “not just the ability to maintain essential function, identity and structure, but also the capacity for transformation.” The IPCC considers resilience both in terms of ecosystem recovery as well as the recovery and adaptation of human societies to natural disasters. The concept of resilience in ecological systems

6237-650: The workings of society. Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program (PESP), a partnership program overseen by the US Environmental Protection Agency , provides pesticide-user consultation to reduce the use of hazardous chemicals and identify the detrimental impact these chemicals can have on social and environmental health. In 2006, England placed environmental stewardship at the center of an agricultural incentives mechanism, encouraging cattle farmers to better manage their land, crops, animals, and material use. The Environmental Stewardship Award

6318-434: Was conducted, it became clear that oftentimes, natural systems were subjected to dynamic, transient behaviors that changed how they reacted to significant changes in state variables: rather than work back towards a predetermined equilibrium, the absorbed change was harnessed to establish a new baseline to operate under. Rather than minimize imposed changes, ecosystems could integrate and manage those changes, and use them to fuel

6399-513: Was created as part of this initiative to highlight members whose actions exemplify alignment with environmental stewardship. Resilience (ecology) In ecology , resilience is the capacity of an ecosystem to respond to a perturbation or disturbance by resisting damage and subsequently recovering. Such perturbations and disturbances can include stochastic events such as fires , flooding , windstorms , insect population explosions, and human activities such as deforestation , fracking of

6480-593: Was first introduced by the Canadian ecologist C.S. Holling in order to describe the persistence of natural systems in the face of changes in ecosystem variables due to natural or anthropogenic causes. Resilience has been defined in two ways in ecological literature: The second definition has been termed ‘ecological resilience’, and it presumes the existence of multiple stable states or regimes. For example, some shallow temperate lakes can exist within either clear water regime, which provides many ecosystem services , or

6561-595: Was significant work in these relatively non-traditional fields that helped facilitate the evolution of the resilience perspective as a whole. 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. Regime shift Regime shifts are large, abrupt, persistent changes in

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