Analytical methods for ecosystem resilience: A hydrological investigation

Peterson, T. J.; Western, AW; Argent, Robert M.

doi:10.1029/2012wr012150

Cited by 30 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…In turn, the patterns of within-scale (species richness compartmentalized by scale) and cross-scale (temporal scales of fluctuations patterns) structure identified allowed for an assessment of critical components of resilience and provided insight into the dynamic structure of phytoplankton communities in these states. Although our approach allowed us to study causal effects of non-linear hydrological patterns on phytoplankton communities that are relevant for understanding ecohydrological processes in wetlands [60,61], our approach limited an assessment of non-linear processes triggering phytoplankton changes between the wet and dry state. Notwithstanding, our approach shows how community dynamics can be inferred under contrasting ecological conditions and is therefore also suitable for assessing the relative resilience of alternative states in ecosystems and other complex systems.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inferring the Relative Resilience of Alternative States

et al. 2013

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Ecological systems may occur in alternative states that differ in ecological structures, functions and processes. Resilience is the measure of disturbance an ecological system can absorb before changing states. However, how the intrinsic structures and processes of systems that characterize their states affects their resilience remains unclear. We analyzed time series of phytoplankton communities at three sites in a floodplain in central Spain to assess the dominant frequencies or “temporal scales” in community dynamics and compared the patterns between a wet and a dry alternative state. The identified frequencies and cross-scale structures are expected to arise from positive feedbacks that are thought to reinforce processes in alternative states of ecological systems and regulate emergent phenomena such as resilience. Our analyses show a higher species richness and diversity but lower evenness in the dry state. Time series modeling revealed a decrease in the importance of short-term variability in the communities, suggesting that community dynamics slowed down in the dry relative to the wet state. The number of temporal scales at which community dynamics manifested, and the explanatory power of time series models, was lower in the dry state. The higher diversity, reduced number of temporal scales and the lower explanatory power of time series models suggest that species dynamics tended to be more stochastic in the dry state. From a resilience perspective our results highlight a paradox: increasing species richness may not necessarily enhance resilience. The loss of cross-scale structure (i.e. the lower number of temporal scales) in community dynamics across sites suggests that resilience erodes during drought. Phytoplankton communities in the dry state are therefore likely less resilient than in the wet state. Our case study demonstrates the potential of time series modeling to assess attributes that mediate resilience. The approach is useful for assessing resilience of alternative states across ecological and other complex systems.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inferring the Relative Resilience of Alternative States

et al. 2013

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“…Alternatively, climatic disturbances may be sufficient to cause repeated switching between the attractors; hence causing an amplified hydrological response to climate variability. Such repeated switching has been shown to occur using a very simple 1‐D groundwater model, but more complex dynamics were also shown to arise whereby a temporary second attractor existed only during wet periods [ Peterson et al ., ]. Such repeated and complex switching mechanisms highlight the need to identify and locate the existing attractors (and repellors) before exploring their emergence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiple hydrological attractors under stochastic daily forcing: 1. Can multiple attractors exist?

Peterson

Western

2014

Water Resources Research

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Including positive feedbacks in hydrological models has recently been shown to result in complex behavior with multiple steady states. When a large disturbance, say a major drought, is simulated within such models the hydrology changes. Once the disturbance ends the hydrology does not return to that prior to the disturbance, but rather, persists within an alternate state. These multiple steady states (henceforth attractors) exist for a single model parameterization and cause the system to have a finite resilience to such transient disturbances. A limitation of past hydrological resilience studies is that multiple attractors have been identified using mean annual or mean monthly forcing. Considering that most hydrological fluxes are subject to significant forcing stochasticity and do not operate at such large timescales, it remains an open question whether multiple hydrological attractors can exist when a catchment is subject to stochastic daily forcing. This question is the focus of this paper and it needs to be addressed prior to searching for multiple hydrological attractors in the field. To investigate this, a previously developed semidistributed hillslope ecohydrological model was adopted which exhibited multiple steady states under average monthly climate forcing. In this paper, the ecohydrological model was used to explore if feedbacks between the vegetation and a saline water table result in two attractors existing under daily stochastic forcing. The attractors and the threshold between them (henceforth repellor) were quantified using a new limit cycle continuation technique that upscaled climate forcing from daily to monthly (model and limit cycle code is freely available). The method was used to determine the values of saturated lateral hydraulic conductivity at which multiple attractors exist. These estimates were then assessed against time-integration estimates, which they agreed with. Overall, multiple attractors were found to exist under stochastic daily forcing. However, changing the climate forcing from monthly to daily did significantly reduce the parameter range over which two attractors existed. This suggests fewer catchments may have multiple attractors than previously considered.

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“…Ecological indicators have been developed for river basin management in many regions of the world (Bunn et al, 2010;Josefsson and Baaner, 2011). Attention has also been paid to the resilience of hydrological aspects of water systems under climate change, extreme weather and alteration in land cover (Harder et al, 2015;Peterson et al, 2012). Better understanding of multiple steady hydrological states and the process interaction of switching between states can inform adaptive water management (Botter et al, 2013).…”

Section: Water Subsystem With Anthropogenic Hazardsmentioning

confidence: 99%

HESS Opinions: A conceptual framework for assessing socio-hydrological resilience under change

Mao

Clark

Karpouzoglou

et al. 2017

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Despite growing interest in resilience, there is still significant scope for increasing its conceptual clarity and practical relevance in socio-hydrological contexts: specifically, questions of how socio-hydrological systems respond to and cope with perturbations and how these connect to resilience remain unanswered. In this opinion paper, we propose a novel conceptual framework for understanding and assessing resilience in coupled socio-hydrological contexts, and encourage debate on the inter-connections between socio-hydrology and resilience. Taking a systems perspective, we argue that resilience is a set of systematic properties with three dimensions: absorptive, adaptive, and transformative, and contend that socio-hydrological systems can be viewed as various forms of human-water couplings, reflecting different aspects of these interactions. We propose a framework consisting of two parts. The first part addresses the identity of socio-hydrological resilience, answering questions such as "resilience of what in relation to what". We identify three existing framings of resilience for different types of human-water systems and subsystems, which have been used in different fields: (1) the water subsystem, highlighting hydrological resilience to anthropogenic hazards; (2) the human subsystem, foregrounding social resilience to hydrological hazards; and (3) the coupled human-water system, exhibiting socio-hydrological resilience. We argue that these three system types and resiliences afford new insights into the clarification and evaluation of different water management challenges. The first two types address hydrological and social states, while the third type emphasises the feedbacks and interactions between human and water components within complex systems subject to internal or external disturbances. In the second part, we focus on resilience management and develop the notion of the "resilience canvas", a novel heuristic device to identify possible pathways and to facilitate the design of bespoke strategies for enhancing resilience in the socio-hydrological context. The resilience canvas is constructed by combining absorptive and adaptive capacities as two axes. At the corners of the resulting twodimensional space are four quadrants which we conceptualise as representing resilient, vulnerable, susceptible, and resistant system states. To address projected change-induced uncertainties, we recommend that efforts now be focused on shifting socio-hydrological systems from resistant towards resilient status. In sum, the novel framework proposed here clarifies the ambiguity inherent in socio-hydrological resilience, and provides a viable basis for further theoretical and practical development.

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Analytical methods for ecosystem resilience: A hydrological investigation

Cited by 30 publications

References 43 publications

Inferring the Relative Resilience of Alternative States

Inferring the Relative Resilience of Alternative States

Multiple hydrological attractors under stochastic daily forcing: 1. Can multiple attractors exist?

HESS Opinions: A conceptual framework for assessing socio-hydrological resilience under change

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