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This paper considers the process of professional becoming for an academic developer as a complex transition towards epistemological plurality. This is a necessary step to appreciate and support the lived experiences of teachers across the spectrum of academic disciplines. Viewed through an ecological lens, the complexity of the developmental journey becomes more achievable as it can be broken down into a series of adaptive cycles that move from 'dependence' to 'independence', and from 'epistemologically singular' to 'epistemologically plural'. We suggest that the descriptive power of the ecological lens may be helpful to academic developers to contextualize their own professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to understand why higher education institutions (HEIs) struggle to become sustainable institutions themselves despite providing relevant teaching and research on sustainability. Design/methodology/approach: Using 17 open-ended, semistructured interviews to determine common themes (codes) regarding sustainability, the authors mapped those codes to the adaptive cycle from social innovation theory. Findings: Using the adaptive cycle offered a framework for understanding sustainability at HEIs as a cyclical process where innovation occurs in ebbs and flows. Differing perceptions of power by students and faculty slow down the process, and cross-collaboration is the key to further sustainability. Practical implications: Insights from the adaptive cycle can contribute to HEI assessment of its sustainability initiatives by identifying the stage of the adaptive cycle relevant to the institution's present sustainability work. Originality/value: Applying the adaptive cycle is an original way of understanding the process of anchoring sustainability at HEIs providing concrete insights into advancing this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shift towards an ecological university may be the key to achieving greater levels of social justice within higher education. This assumes that we could change the root metaphor of higher education – away from the current industrial model that is infused with neoliberal ideology and towards a more sustainable ecological model. This change involves five key moves that require us to: construct an institutional natural history to understand the network of interactions within the university; to explore the nature of the dominant narratives and move away from a narrative monoculture; to value post-abyssal thinking that includes cultural knowledge as well as academic knowledge; to move away from dependence on heroic leaders towards ecological leadership, and to consider how we can develop sustainable pedagogies that can withstand disturbances to the ecosystem. This paper acknowledges that coordination of these moves presents a considerable challenge to university managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to understand why higher education institutions (HEIs) struggle to become sustainable institutions themselves despite providing relevant teaching and research on sustainability. Design/methodology/approach: Using 17 open-ended, semistructured interviews to determine common themes (codes) regarding sustainability, the authors mapped those codes to the adaptive cycle from social innovation theory. Findings: Using the adaptive cycle offered a framework for understanding sustainability at HEIs as a cyclical process where innovation occurs in ebbs and flows. Differing perceptions of power by students and faculty slow down the process, and cross-collaboration is the key to further sustainability. Practical implications: Insights from the adaptive cycle can contribute to HEI assessment of its sustainability initiatives by identifying the stage of the adaptive cycle relevant to the institution's present sustainability work. Originality/value: Applying the adaptive cycle is an original way of understanding the process of anchoring sustainability at HEIs providing concrete insights into advancing this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities and neighbourhoods are changing rapidly. While rapid change is accepted, it is less clear how to understand and analyse change and steer it towards a more sustainable trajectory. This paper focuses on the transformation of a particular street in Mamelodi, situated in Pretoria (capital city of South Africa). Utilizing a resilience lens, we unpack the various cycles of adaptation evident in the street. Our analysis shows that the transformation of Tsweu Street broadly followed the phases of the adaptive cycle, namely rapid growth, conservation, release and reorganization and incorporated three dimensions of resilience, namely social or community, spatial and institutional resilience. We argue that resilience thinking offers a mechanism to understand and analyse change at various scales, including the street level and that this provides planners with a tool to work with change through the application of appropriate measures at the relevant time to maximize their impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2006, Walker et al. published an article titled, "A Handful of Heuristics and Some Propositions for Understanding Resilience in Social-ecological Systems." The article was incorporated into the Ecology and Society special feature, Exploring Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems. Walker et al. identified five heuristics and posed 14 propositions for understanding resilience in social-ecological systems. At the time, the authors hoped the paper would promote experimentation, critique, and application of these ideas in resilience and social-ecological systems research. To determine the extent to which these propositions have achieved the authors' hopes, we reviewed the scientific literature on socialecological systems since the article was published. Using Scopus, we identified 627 articles that cited the Walker et al. article. We then identified and assessed the articles relative to each proposition. In addition, we conducted a more general Scopus review for articles that did not cite the Walker et al. article specifically but incorporated a proposition's concepts. Overall, articles often cite Walker et al. as a reference for a definition of a heuristic or ecological resilience generally and not to reference a specific proposition. Nonetheless, every proposition was at least mentioned in the literature and used to advance resilience scholarship on social-ecological systems. Eleven propositions were tested by multiple articles through application of case studies or other research, and 7 of the 11 propositions were substantially discussed and advanced. Finally, three propositions were heavily critiqued either as concepts in resilience literature or in their application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of resilience has gained much attention in recent academic and political discussion. However, its application to specific sectors, such as retail, is rather scarce. The aim of this paper is to present the concept of resilience and to analyse its applicability to the retail sector within the context of the town centre. The paper proposes a possible analytical framework for adaptively resilient retail centres that links the performance of retail centres to underlying development paths, the pre-shock position in the adaptive cycle, and other factors that drive their evolutionary reorganisation. The proposed framework has a practical application for spatial and urban planning and can be beneficial to various stakeholders and practitioners, including retailers, policy makers, and town centre managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rivers and riparian ecosystems have historically provided a range of beneficial goods and services to human societies. However, floodplains have also posed risks to the humans that came to rely upon them. Although riparian areas are among the most resource-rich and biodiverse ecosystems, they are also some of the most disturbed by human activity. Today, social and economic needs for water diverted off-stream are often pitted against the flow of water needed to maintain crucial instream ecological functions. The construction of dams has been a widely implemented method to control rivers for human purposes, particularly in the western United States. However, there is a growing movement to decommission dams, as stakeholders begin to recognize the ultimate value of restoring ecosystem services, including cultural ecosystem services; indeed, their restoration may be necessary to ensure lasting systemic resilience. Broader questions of dam decommissioning in the United States are receiving increasing attention by scholars and practitioners alike. In this paper, we adapt and apply seminal concepts from the adaptive cycle framework and cultural ecosystem services, particularly for Native Nations, and thereby assess the unfolding case of decommissioning and restoration on the Elwha River in northwest Washington State. The empirical evidence indicates that dam removal coincided with scalar and temporal alignment of multiple adaptive cycles and contributed to both short and long-term resilience. Further, the Elwha case represents an extremely important precedent in the evolution of river management practices, in which stakeholder-based collaborative governance incorporated knowledge coproduction and regulatory maneuvering to successfully overcome obstacles inherent in both dam decommissioning and subsequent restoration. We conclude by reflecting on lessons of broader relevance beyond the specific case of the Elwha. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small towns do not emerge spontaneously, but evolve, with water governance issues emerging at each stage of the community's growth. Water governance is bedevilled with challenges because cognitive attention is not given to water governance at early stages of growth. This paper examines small town water governance in Ghana, using field research in two communities, Gwollu and Daffiama, in north-western Ghana, which had water systems installed in the 1960s. Systems' thinking was used to unravel the evolution of the water systems. The paper uses historical analysis to focus on the water systems' successes and vulnerability issues, and to explain how management has been able to respond to different pressures over time. Each water system has been exposed to an array of pressures, including technological changes, socioeconomic and demographic changes, all of which have influenced the functioning of their water governance regimes. The case studies illustrate how each town's water system has gone through a cycle of adaptive change of: (i) growth/exploitation; (ii) conservation; and (iii) final collapse of the water system. After the collapse, the two towns moved to a reorganisation of their water system in the same year. The two water systems were moving to a collapse stage. The paper concludes by offering an explanation of the current state of outcomes. • The communities have had a fluctuating history of water supply due to inadequate adaptive managerial measures. • Each water system has been exposed to an array of pressures which influence the functioning of the system. • Costs of operation and maintenance are covered through user charges. • Poor financial resource mobilization and management are predominant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I provide a synthesis of the papers in the Special Issue, The Conservation and Restoration of Old Growth in Frequent-fire Forests of the American West. These papers—the product of an Old Growth Writing Workshop, held at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona on 18-19 April 2006 #x2014;represent the ideas of 25 workshop participants who argue for a new attitude toward managing old growth in the frequent-fire forests of the American West. Unlike the lush, old-growth rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, the dry, frequent-fire forests of the western United States evolved with surface fires that disturbed the system with such regularity that young trees were almost always killed. When saplings did survive, they grew beyond the harm of frequent surface fires and, ultimately, attained the characteristics that define old growth in these systems. This system worked well, producing old-growth trees in abundance, until the onset of Euro-American settlement in the mid- to late-19th century. The arrival of these settlers put in motion an interplay of unprecedented social, political, economic, and ecological forces (e.g., removal of Native Americans and their fire-based land management systems, overgrazing of the understory, aggressive logging, establishment of federal land management agencies, implementation of a federal fire suppression policy). These activities have culminated in 1) overly dense forested ecosystems that are now on the verge of collapse because of catastrophic fires (i.e., crown fire at the landscape level; the Rodeo-Chediski Fire) and insect outbreaks, 2) the emergence of conservation-minded environmental legislation and policy, and 3) greater levels of interaction between citizens, federal agencies, and fire-prone landscapes. Recognizing the tenuous ecological situation of these forests, restoration ecologists, foresters, and others have developed ways to return historic ecological processes and lower tree densities to these forests. However, their efforts are not without challenges, including working with communities and citizens, serving as a bridge between entrenched bureaucracies (i.e., federal agencies and environmental groups), balancing both ecological and economic interests, and producing new applied technologies and science-based policy to advance conservation and restoration efforts aimed at preserving and developing old growth within a healthy forest environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper compares two ambitious conceptual structures. The first is the understanding of social-ecological systems developed around the term ‘resilience,’ and more recently the term ‘panarchy,’ in the work of Holling, Gunderson, and others. The second is Wallerstein's ‘world-systems’ approach to analyzing hierarchical relationships between societies within global capitalism as developed and applied across a broader historical range by Chase-Dunn and others. The two structures have important common features, notably their multiscale explanatory framework, links with ideas concerning complex systems, and interest in cyclical phenomena. They also have important differences. It is argued that there are gaps in both sets of ideas that the other might remedy. Their greatest strengths lie at different spatiotemporal scales and in different disciplinary areas, but each also has weaknesses the other does not address, particularly with regard to the mechanisms underlying proposed cyclic patterns of events. The paper ends with a sketch for a research program within which panarchical and world-systems insights might be synthesised in the study of the ‘Great European Land-Grab,’ i.e., the expansion of European capitalism and its distinctive social-ecological systems over the past five centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African floodplains are an excellent example of coupled human–natural systems because they exhibit strong interactions among multiple social, ecological, and hydrological systems. The intra-annual and interannual variations in seasonal flooding have direct and indirect impacts on ecosystems and human lives and livelihoods. Coupled human and natural system (CHANS) is a broad conceptual framework that is used to study systems in which human and natural components interact. While there are other conceptual frameworks to study social-ecological systems, the CHANS framework offers a clear way of studying the interactions, called couplings, between human and natural systems. Core features of the framework are the following: human and natural systems are analytically separated; focus is on processes within and couplings between systems; and the goal is to build an integrative, quantitative model of the coupled system. This paper explains the conceptual framework of coupled systems, using the case study of the Logone floodplain in Cameroon. We compare the CHANS framework with other frameworks that have been used to study the same floodplain, and argue for its usefulness in the study of African floodplains. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses the methodological challenge of exposing and reconciling contradictory narratives of change in a social-ecological system (SES). Our research occurred in the Ovens Valley in southeastern Australia. Other studies have used the adaptive cycle to interpret change, but those efforts have been based on researcher-derived interpretations. We drew on the Factors Actors Sectors framework as a structure for coding qualitative interview data provided by key informants. Our analysis suggested that interpretations of SES change fell into three groups: farmers, employees of government and local organizations, and local politicians. Those narratives were then overlaid on the adaptive cycle as a way of exposing and interpreting the narratives. To farmers, the SES was based on agriculture and approaching collapse, and intervention was required to prevent a collapse. Employees of government and local organizations thought the SES had already collapsed, and local people were struggling to identify a prosperous new trajectory. The local politicians also thought the system had collapsed but unlike the other stakeholders, considered the SES as having already reorganized. We then drew on a range of secondary data to reconcile those contradictory narratives and form a consolidated interpretation of landscape change. Our synthesis of the primary and secondary data suggested that the SES had collapsed and reorganized as a multifunctional landscape. We suggest our approach may be useful to others attempting to interpret landscape change using a resilience framework. The case study also illustrates the importance of exploring multiple perspectives of landscape change as a way of exposing the role of power as a force shaping discourse and, therefore, policy and planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors of this paper suggest applying the concept of resilience in the process of setting up Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be implemented in the United Nations Post-2015 Development Agenda. Referring to the synopsis of the scientific basis of resilience and sustainability presented by Bloesch et al., the proposed general goals and specific targets of sustainable development are introduced and discussed. The aims of the SDGs and the corresponding targets can only materialize when applying as guiding principles advanced knowledge (science), transfer of knowledge and skills (education and training), encouragement of creativity and ethical values (governance and policy). Moreover, the fundamental values of ecosystem function are to be acknowledged as well as the need to balance the three sub-systems of the eco-social triad. It appears necessary to focus on integrative resilience. The Post-2015 Development Agenda should stress the crucial role of self-regulation in ecosystems, and a corresponding cognitive regulation of social and economic systems with the aim to ensure system's stability within given thresholds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores addiction through the lens of complex adaptive systems theory, as an emergent, non-linear phenomenon that undergoes cyclical patterns of stability and change. Particularly, an addiction is a behavioural pattern that emerges through the dynamic interactions of numerous variables operating both within the individual and in the environment. Furthermore, we argue that an addiction moves through the four phases of the adaptive cycle and exists at a given scale nested within a panarchy of other complex systems. Each of these complex adaptive systems is moving through its own adaptive cycle at faster and slower rates, affecting the course of addiction in various ways. We conclude this work by suggesting that forthcoming addiction interventions and research may benefit from the consideration that addiction is a function of three separate, but related, adaptive cycles; the addiction cycle itself; a transitory cycle, and a final cycle in which the individual is actively responsible for the maintenance of his or her own recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ancient Egypt provides insights on local responses to political and social changes. • Changes were not all gradual and were part of interacting, dynamic, multiscalar adaptive cycles. • Inhabitants at Tell el-Dabˁa reacted and (re-)adapted via short- and long-term strategies. • Strategies include fostering community, negotiating cultural elements, and developing networks. Ancient Egypt is considered as one of the world's longest enduring civilisations, yet few studies have explored its history for insights on community resilience in response to institutional and social change. Instead of focussing on the collapse of the central Egyptian administration, this paper centres its analysis on a 'community' in the northeast of Egypt at ancient Avaris, modern Tell el-Dabˁa. Using resilience theory as metaphor, it provides an overview of developments at the site, observing periods of relative stability punctuated by those of accelerated change. It addresses how different social groups transformed in light of social and political developments by (re-)negotiating cultural elements as well as their local, regional, and supra-regional ties, and whether and how these may be interpreted as short- and long-term strategies of 'survival'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports findings from the Northern region of a province-wide initiative aimed at better understanding local food hubs in communities throughout the province of Ontario. Drawing on case studies of five key hubs in the emerging Northern local food system, we explore from the theoretical framework of complex adaptive systems theory the emergence and development of each hub as they collectively give shape to a regional local food system. This analysis focuses on the four phases of the adaptive cycle which describes the typical developmental sequence of complex systems and reveals how they emerge, self-organise, adapt to change and harness innovation for new cycles of growth within the shadow of the dominant food system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite progress in interdisciplinary research, difficulties remain. In this paper, we argue that scholars, educators, and practitioners need to critically rethink the ways in which interdisciplinary research and training are conducted. We present epistemological pluralism as an approach for conducting innovative, collaborative research and study. Epistemological pluralism recognizes that, in any given research context, there may be several valuable ways of knowing, and that accommodating this plurality can lead to more successful integrated study. This approach is particularly useful in the study and management of social-ecological systems. Through resilience theory's adaptive cycle, we demonstrate how a focus on epistemological pluralism can facilitate the reorganization of interdisciplinary research and avoid the build-up of significant, but insufficiently integrative, disciplinary-dominated research. Finally, using two case studies-urban ecology and social-ecological research in Alaska-we highlight how interdisciplinary work is impeded when divergent epistemologies are not recognized and valued, and that by incorporating a pluralistic framework, these issues can be better explored, resulting in more integrated understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Factors that constitute resilience can themselves change over time in social-ecological systems. This poses a major challenge for understanding resilience and suggests greater investigation is needed of how social-ecological systems evolve through time and how to manage along more resilient pathways given continuous change. Resilient pathways account for the changing context of socialecological systems, such as changing management discourses and their societal inclusiveness, changing system boundaries and external connections, and lingering consequences of past management actions. In this paper I use two well-known conceptual frameworks to explore change in social-ecological systems and associated resilience in the case of water management in South Africa, which is undergoing a major transformation: (1) the conceptual framework of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) and (2) the adaptive cycle described by Holling and others. Both frameworks, with minor adaptations, illustrate the system's shift from a centralized command-and-control style bureaucracy to a decentralized system guided by new legislation and a vision to balance efficiency, equity, and sustainability. During the former era, water managers attempted to maintain system stability and productivity through institutional and technical means that favored certain sectors of society, but resilience of the water management system declined as a result of increasingly unpopular policies and loss of ecosystem services. In using both frameworks, it becomes clear that the water management system contains two distinct social subsystems, representing South Africa's previously advantaged and disadvantaged populations, and that these do not progress through the phases of the MA framework and adaptive cycle uniformly. This implies particular challenges for achieving the water management vision: (1) the potential for management discourses to be manipulated by powerful groups, (2) equity issues that reflect new system boundaries that extend beyond South Africa's borders, and (3) past overallocation and poor management of water that make the previous level of privileges unattainable today. The South African water sector is a compelling case because of its dramatic transformation with as-yet unknown outcomes, but it presents challenges that are common among many large-scale social-ecological systems. With great international interest in operationalizing resilience definitions and frameworks, this exercise suggests the need to revisit definitions, continue applying these frameworks, and adapting them to capture variations in social-ecological systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the use of Resilience Theory to provide an improved theoretical framework for the analysis of socio-ecological interactions over decadal—millennial timescales. It identifies landscape system behaviour through analysis of proxy records for land use, erosion and monsoon intensity over the past 3000 years in the Erhai lake-catchment system, Yunnan, SW China. Analysis of the records shows the possibility of alternative steady states in the landscape, as expressed by the relationship between land use and erosion. In particular, a period of agricultural expansion ~1400 cal. yr BP triggered rapid gully erosion that led to the formation of an eroded landscape state that has existed since ~800 cal. yr BP to the present day. Comparison of detrended time-series data suggests that over 3000 years erosion and land use should be considered 'slow' processes relative to the 'faster' monsoon intensity and flooding. In the past, the effects of high monsoon variance on flooding have been suppressed by paddy farming and the maintenance of terraced field systems. Mapping the Adaptive Cycle on to the millennial record of land use and erosion suggests that the modern landscape may be approaching a 'conservation' phase characterized by minimum resilience. Such 'historical profiling' of modern landscapes offers a new dimension for hypothesis testing, for the development and testing of simulation models and for the creation of appropriate management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interdisciplinary framework known as resilience theory used by ecologists, social scientists, as well as policy makers, is primarily concerned with the sources of transformation and stability in complex socioecological systems. The laboratory of the long and diverse archaeological record is uniquely suited to testing some of the implications of this theoretical perspective. In this paper, we consider the history of land use and landscape change across the transition from foraging to agricultural subsistence economies in the Middle Chevelon Creek region of northern Arizona. Through this discussion, we highlight the potential roles of diversity and flexibility at multiple spatial and temporal scales in the resilience of human land use practices from the prehistoric past. Expressing the long-term history of this region in a more general theoretical language that bridges the social and natural sciences promotes the collaboration of scientists with expertise deriving from different traditional disciplines. Such a broad perspective is necessary to characterize changes and stabilities in complex socioecological systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]