Social-Ecological Resilience to Coastal Disasters

This chapter explores how a better understanding of the linkages between ecosystems and human societies can help to reduce vulnerability and enhance resilience of these linked systems in coastal areas. The concept of resilience is a profound shift in traditional perspectives, which attempt to control changes in systems that are assumed to be stable, to a more realistic viewpoint aimed at sustaining and enhancing the capacity of social-ecological systems to adapt to uncertainty and surprise. Hazards in coastal areas often become disasters through the erosion of resilience, driven by environmental change and by human action. Resilient social-ecological systems incorporate diverse mechanisms for coping with change and crisis. A key lesson is that resilient social-ecological systems reduced vulnerability to the impacts of the tsunami and encouraged a rapid, positive response. The case for building resilience in coastal regions is urgent, given trends in human settlement, resource use, and global environmental change.