Toward Principles for Enhancing the Resilience of Ecosystem Services

TLDR

Enhancing the resilience of ecosystem services that underpin human well‑being is critical for meeting current and future societal needs and requires specific governance and management policies. The study identifies seven generic policy‑relevant principles for enhancing ecosystem service resilience, defines each, reviews their effectiveness, and highlights research gaps and future needs to understand interdependencies and operationalize them in policy and management contexts. The authors use a literature review to identify and define seven principles—maintain diversity and redundancy, manage connectivity, manage slow variables and feedbacks, foster understanding of SES as complex adaptive systems, encourage learning and experimentation, broaden participation, and promote polycentric governance systems—to enhance ecosystem service resilience. In practice, the principles often co‑occur and are highly interdependent.

Abstract

Enhancing the resilience of ecosystem services (ES) that underpin human well-being is critical for meeting current and future societal needs, and requires specific governance and management policies. Using the literature, we identify seven generic policy-relevant principles for enhancing the resilience of desired ES in the face of disturbance and ongoing change in social-ecological systems (SES). These principles are (P1) maintain diversity and redundancy, (P2) manage connectivity, (P3) manage slow variables and feedbacks, (P4) foster an understanding of SES as complex adaptive systems (CAS), (P5) encourage learning and experimentation, (P6) broaden participation, and (P7) promote polycentric governance systems. We briefly define each principle, review how and when it enhances the resilience of ES, and conclude with major research gaps. In practice, the principles often co-occur and are highly interdependent. Key future needs are to better understand these interdependencies and to operationalize and apply the principles in different policy and management contexts.