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Ecoengineering tools: Passive artificial ecosystems
Published in Katalin Gruiz, Tamás Meggyes, Éva Fenyvesi, Engineering Tools for Environmental Risk Management – 4, 2019
R. Kovács, N. Szilágyi, I. Kenyeres, K. Gruiz
Enhanced diversity in ecologically engineered systems means better removal performance and better system resilience. Holling (1996) makes a clear difference between engineering resilience and ecological resilience. Engineering resilience measures the degree to which a system resists moving away from its equilibrium point and how quickly it returns after a perturbation. In general, this is what is taken into account during usual design tasks. Ecological resilience reflects how large a disturbance an ecosystem can absorb before it changes its structure and function by changing the underlying variables and processes that control behavior. Diverse systems are more ecologically resilient and able to persist and evolve. Diversity can be measured as (i) the number of species present in the system; (ii) genetic variation within species; and (iii) functional diversity (redundancy), where a certain number of species or processes in the system can perform similar functions.
(Re)Think (Re)Design for Resilience
Published in Elizabeth Mossop, Sustainable Coastal Design and Planning, 2018
The ability of a system to withstand sudden change at one scale assumes that the behavior of the system remains within a stable regime that contains this steady state in the first place. However, when an ecosystem suddenly shifts from one stable regime to another (in the reorganization phase, via a flip between system states or what is called a “regime shift”), a more specific assessment of ecosystem dynamics is needed. In this context, ecological resilience is a measure of the amount of change or disruption that is required to move a system from one state to another and, thus, to a different state of being maintained by a different set of functions and structures than the former (Figures 3.5 through 3.7).26 Each of these nuanced aspects of resilience is important. They underscore the social-cultural and economic challenges inherent in defining what “normal” conditions are and, in turn, how much change is acceptable at what scale.
Performance-based selection of pathways for enhancing built infrastructure resilience
Published in Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure, 2023
Mohammad Rafiq Joo, Ravi Sinha
However, conventional risk assessment frameworks (ASCE, 2017; FEMA, 2009) are based on a narrow and simplified risk perspective without incorporating recovery and future adaptation. For example, the current building codes, with a singular focus on life safety, do not consider post-disaster recovery, which is essential for Resilience. Uncertain conditions necessitate more adaptive planning, so as to allow flexibility in decision-making over the life of the infrastructure. It is also important to recognize that today’s adaptation options and trajectories depend on past choices and decisions (Tellman, Bausch, Eakin, et al., 2018). A recent study (ADB, 2022) identified understanding and accounting for the benefits of resilience and improving risk information and coordination among decision makers as the cross-cutting themes for enhancing resilience. Combining engineering and socio-ecological resilience principles helps to identify, assess and manage vulnerabilities and improve risk assessment and management abilities of any system (Sikula, Mancillas, Linkov, et al., 2015). Thus, resilience assessments are crucial and fundamental in developing plans and practices to reduce future losses (Joo & Sinha, 2022a) and support the principles for resilient infrastructure (UNDRR, 2022b). Therefore, consideration of post-disaster parameters through recovery and resilience assessments is a fundamental requirement for successful identification and implementation of adaptative pathways.
Assessing the hierarchy of long-term environmental controls on diatom communities of Yellowstone National Park using lacustrine sediment records
Published in Lake and Reservoir Management, 2020
Victoria L. Shaw Chraïbi, Sherilyn C. Fritz
Holling (1973) first proposed resilience theory as a framework for understanding how ecosystems respond to environmental stress. Although the definition of resilience varies, here we define ecological resilience as the ability of an ecosystem to withstand disturbance and to resist transitioning into an alternate stable state with different ecological structure and function (Gunderson 2000). Ecological stress affects a system over multiple temporal and spatial scales; hence, a major regime shift can result either from a single large disturbance or from the cumulative effects of several smaller scale changes (Gunderson 2000). An addition to resilience theory, panarchy, characterizes the interconnected, multiple-scale processes that determine the fundamental resilience of a system (Walker et al. 2004).
Leveraging socio-ecological resilience theory to build climate resilience in transport infrastructure
Published in Transport Reviews, 2019
Samantha Hayes, Cheryl Desha, Matthew Burke, Mark Gibbs, Mikhail Chester
These regenerative patterns and strategies reflect recurring characteristics of life (writ large) in ecological systems. Looking at these and others (such as Pedersen Zari (2018) Ecosystem Process Tiers) relative to key elements of socio-ecological resilience, it is evident that there are many overlapping and aligned principles, including multi-functionality, real-time feedback loops, evolution and adaptation, and self-repair. Given that biomimicry has developed clear and actionable frameworks for transferring strategies from biology to design and engineering, it may well provide a useful guide for pursuing socio-ecological resilience attributes in infrastructure engineering – establishing a tangible stepping stone for shifting resilience approaches from a solely “engineering resilience” approach, to one which aligns with a socio-ecological resilience perspective.