Universität zu Köln

Linstaedter, Anja, Kuhn, Arnim, Naumann, Christiane, Rasch, Sebastian, Sandhage-Hofmann, Alexandra, Amelung, Wulf ORCID: 0000-0002-4920-4667, Jordaan, Jorrie, Du Preez, Chris C. and Bollig, Michael (2016). Assessing the resilience of a real-world social-ecological system: lessons from a multidisciplinary evaluation of a South African pastoral system. Ecol. Soc., 21 (3). WOLFVILLE: RESILIENCE ALLIANCE. ISSN 1708-3087

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Abstract

In the past decades, social-ecological systems (SESs) worldwide have undergone dramatic transformations with often detrimental consequences for livelihoods. Although resilience thinking offers promising conceptual frameworks to understand SES transformations, empirical resilience assessments of real-world SESs are still rare because SES complexity requires integrating knowledge, theories, and approaches from different disciplines. Taking up this challenge, we empirically assess the resilience of a South African pastoral SES to drought using various methods from natural and social sciences. In the ecological subsystem, we analyze rangelands' ability to buffer drought effects on forage provision, using soil and vegetation indicators. In the social subsystem, we assess households' and communities' capacities to mitigate drought effects, applying agronomic and institutional indicators and benchmarking against practices and institutions in traditional pastoral SESs. Our results indicate that a decoupling of livelihoods from livestock-generated income was initiated by government interventions in the 1930s. In the post-apartheid phase, minimum-input strategies of herd management were adopted, leading to a recovery of rangeland vegetation due to unintentionally reduced stocking densities. Because current livelihood security is mainly based on external monetary resources (pensions, child grants, and disability grants), household resilience to drought is higher than in historical phases. Our study is one of the first to use a truly multidisciplinary resilience assessment. Conflicting results from partial assessments underline that measuring narrow indicator sets may impede a deeper understanding of SES transformations. The results also imply that the resilience of contemporary, open SESs cannot be explained by an inward-looking approach because essential connections and drivers at other scales have become relevant in the globalized world. Our study thus has helped to identify pitfalls in empirical resilience assessment and to improve the conceptualization of SES dynamics.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Linstaedter, Anja UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Kuhn, Arnim UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Naumann, Christiane UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Rasch, Sebastian UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Sandhage-Hofmann, Alexandra UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Amelung, Wulf UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0002-4920-4667 UNSPECIFIED Jordaan, Jorrie UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Du Preez, Chris C. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Bollig, Michael UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-288930
DOI:	10.5751/ES-08737-210335
Journal or Publication Title:	Ecol. Soc.
Volume:	21
Number:	3
Date:	2016
Publisher:	RESILIENCE ALLIANCE
Place of Publication:	WOLFVILLE
ISSN:	1708-3087
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language SOCIOECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS; GLOBAL DESERTIFICATION; RANGE MANAGEMENT; CLIMATE-CHANGE; REGIME SHIFTS; GRASSLAND; DEGRADATION; STRATEGIES; DROUGHT; SUSTAINABILITY Multiple languages Ecology; Environmental Studies Multiple languages
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/28893