Social vulnerability, social-ecological resilience and coastal governance

Abstract

Non-technical summary Our analysis shows that the framing of social vulnerability is shaped by a narrow definition of resilience, focusing on post-disaster return and recovery responses. This perspective does not account for the dynamism and non-stationarity of social-ecological systems (SES) which is becoming increasingly important in the face of accelerating environmental change. Incorporating social-ecological resilience into social vulnerability analysis can improve coastal governance by accounting for adaptation and transformation, as well as scale and cross-scale interactions. Technical summary Social vulnerability analysis has been unable to deliver outcomes that reflect the reality of vulnerability and its consequences in an era characterised by accelerating environmental change. In this work, we used critical discourse analysis and key informant interviews to understand different framings of social vulnerability in coastal governance and management, globally and in New Zealand. We found that the framing of system vulnerability could vary depending on the definition of resilience adopted, which has critical ramifications for coastal governance of linked systems of humans and nature. We found that the framing of social vulnerability in coastal governance is mainly influenced by engineering, community and disaster resilience, focusing on return and recovery governance responses to environmental change (e.g. hurricanes, wildfires). Instead, we suggest a novel perspective based on social-ecological resilience, which more accurately reflects the dynamics of linked systems of humans and nature (SES). This revised perspective, general vulnerability, accounts for the dynamics of Earth's systems across various spatial and temporal scales in the face of accelerating environmental change. Accounting for social-ecological resilience and its core aspects (i.e. panarchy, adaptation and transformation) is essential for informing coastal governance of SES (Do we adapt? or Do we transform the SES?). Social media summary Social-ecological resilience is essential for social vulnerability analysis in the face of accelerating environmental change.

How resilience is framed matters for governance of coastal social‐ecological systems

“…Our paper illuminates the key differences between types of resilience, and the potential implications for decision making for SES, backed with a discourse analysis of the literature and key informant interviews from practitioners in Tasmania, Australia. Our work supports the findings of other researchers (Allen et al, 2019; Jozaei et al, 2022) that social‐ecological resilience is an essential framing for governance of SES, with critical implications for coastal areas, in the face of accelerating climate change.…”

Methodological approaches to assess climate vulnerability and cumulative impacts on coastal landscapes

“…Based on our review and following Leslie et al (2015) and Jozaei et al (2022), we believe that the lack of standardization in evaluations and procedures could be because there are still few approaches that incorporate science in CVA (Leslie et al, 2015;Jozaei et al, 2022).…”

Actor-Network Theory: Insights into the Study of Social-Ecological Resilience

“…Carpenter et al formally proposed social-ecological resilience based on the interaction between human beings and ecological systems [ 13 ]. Social-ecological resilience is defined as “the capacity of a social-ecological system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while changing to retain essentially still the same function, structure, and feedback” [ 14 , 15 ]. Among them, the absorption of disturbance refers to the amount of change that a system can absorb without changing its state, and reorganization refers to the ability of a system to respond to changes through the interaction of its components [ 16 ].…”