Exploring systems interactions for building resilience within coastal environments and communities

Annotation for Exploring systems interactions for building resilience within coastal environments and communities

Mcfadden L.. 0. Exploring systems interactions for building resilience within coastal environments and communities. 9.

Aim/objectives: 

The paper discusses systems interactions that are important in building coastal resilience for coastal zone management.

Geographic Focus: 

Methods: 

Key Findings: 

The paper discusses drivers for increasing the resilience of coastal systems. Employing an institutional analysis of coastal management in South Australia, cross-scale interactions and informal relationships within and between users and managers were identified as important drivers of resilience outcomes. Cross-scale interactions are a key part of capacity building while informal rules and interactions, including culture and norms, proved to be of significant influence in constructing behaviour of resource users and managers of the coastal system. The author identifies the need for improved understanding of the learning processes occurring between formal (e.g. policies) and informal (e.g. cultural and societal norms) spaces within the system to help improve coastal resilience.

Lessons: 

Cross-scale interactions and informal relationships within and between users and coastal managers are fundamental to coastal systems management. These processes continue to emphasise the critical importance of understanding learning within multiple adaptive cycles occurring across scales (panarchy). Of particular significance for adaptive learning is the emphasis on cultural and societal norms as key drivers of resilience. Cultural and societal norms are embedded within the full range of human faculties, including physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Therefore any approach to adaptive learning will require acknowledgement and engagement with these realities in a way that is context specific and sensitive to needs. Institutionalised cultural and societal norms can be deeply embedded and resistant to change (in the event that change is needed), therefore adaptive learning at this scale particularly will require access to, and receptive understanding of, multiple knowledges and value systems.