Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Systems of Humans and Nature

Creating institutions to meet the challenge of sustainability is arguably the most important task confronting society; it is also dauntingly complex. Ecological, economic, and social elements all play a role, but despite ongoing efforts, researchers have yet to succeed in integrating the various disciplines in a way that gives adequate representation to the insights of each.

Panarchy, a term devised to describe evolving hierarchical systems with multiple interrelated elements, offers an important new framework for understanding and resolving this dilemma. Panarchy is the structure in which systems, including those of nature (e.g., forests) and of humans (e.g., capitalism), as well as combined human-natural systems (e.g., institutions that govern natural resource use such as the Forest Service), are interlinked in continual adaptive cycles of growth, accumulation, restructuring, and renewal. These transformational cycles take place at scales ranging from a drop of water to the biosphere, over periods from days to geologic epochs. By understanding these cycles and their scales, researchers can identify the points at which a system is capable of accepting positive change, and can use those leverage points to foster resilience and sustainability within the system.

This volume brings together leading thinkers on the subject-including Fikret Berkes, Buz Brock, Steve Carpenter, Carl Folke, Lance Gunderson, C.S. Holling, Don Ludwig, Karl-Gran Mler, Charles Perrings, Marten Scheffer, Brian Walker, and Frances Westley-to develop and examine the concept of panarchy and to consider how it can be applied to human, natural, and human-natural systems. Throughout, contributors seek to identify adaptive approaches to management that recognize uncertainty and encourage innovation while fostering resilience.

The book is a fundamental new development in a widely acclaimed line of inquiry. It represents the first step in integrating disciplinary knowledge for the adaptive management of human-natural systems across widely divergent scales, and offers an important base of knowledge from which institutions for adaptive management can be developed. It will be an invaluable source of ideas and understanding for students, researchers, and professionals involved with ecology, conservation biology, ecological economics, environmental policy, or related fields.

Earth scientists and economists from the four hemispheres embarked on a three-year project to identify how economic growth and human development depend on joint attributes of ecosystems and institutions; and to seek ways to identify, monitor, and maintain those attributes, or restore them if eroded. They used the ecological notion of resilience and its corollary precepts in social science. Here are their findings.
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Bringing together leading thinkers on the subject, this book examines how to develop and examine the concept of panarchy, and to consider how it can be applied to human, natural, and human-natural systems. Throughout, contributors seek to identify adaptive approaches to management that recognize uncertainty and encourage innnovation while fostering resilience. Tables, figures, & index.

L. H. Gunderson is professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

C. S. Holling is emeritus eminent scholar in the Department of Zoology at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

List of Boxes

Preface

Part I. Introduction

Chapter 1. In Quest of a Theory of Adaptive Change

Part II. Theories of Change

Chapter 2. Resilience and Adaptive Cycles

Chapter 3. Sustainability and Panarchies

Chapter 4. Why Systems of People and Nature

Are Not Just Social and Ecological Systems

Chapter 5. Back to the Future: Ecosystem Dynamics

and Local Knowledge

Chapter 6. The Dynamics of Political Discourse in

Seeking Sustainability

Part III. Myths, Models, and Metaphors

Chapter 7. Collapse, Learning, and Renewal

Chapter 8. Dynamic Interaction of Societies and

Ecosystems-Linking Theories from Ecology,

Economy, and Sociology

Chapter 9. A Future of Surprises

Chapter 10. Resilience and Sustainability: The Economic

Analysis of Nonlinear Dynamic Systems

Part IV. Linking Theory to Practice

Chapter 11. Resilient Rangelands-Adaptation in

Complex Systems

Chapter 12. Surprises and Sustainability:

Cycles of Renewal in the Everglades

Chapter 13. The Devil in the Dynamics:

Adaptive Management on the Front Lines

Chapter 14. Planning for Resilience: Scenarios,

Surprises, and Branch Points

Part V. Summary and Synthesis

Chapter 15. Discoveries for Sustainable Futures

Chapter 16. Toward an Integrative Synthesis

Appendix A. A Model for Ecosystems with

Alternative Stable States

Appendix B. Optimizing Social Utility from Lake Use

Appendix C. Tax as a Way to Direct Society

Appendix D. Collective Action Problems and

Their Effect on Political Power

References

List of Contributors

Index