Resilience, Adaptability, and Regime Shifts Thinking: A Perspective of Dryland Socio-ecology System

doi:10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2021.03.007

Abstract

Abstract:

Arid areas are widespread globally and support a third of the world’s population’s livelihoods. The increasing population, urbanization, land-use changes, and the climate significantly affect coupled natural and human systems and threaten environments and socio-ecological land systems. The degradation of drylands poses a severe and widespread threat to the lives of millions of people, especially in developing countries and in the global environment. This review assesses published literature on dryland socio-ecological systems to reveal current research trends and changes in research themes over time and introduces basic theories and advances in dryland socio-ecological system frameworks, resilience measurement, and regime shifts. Developing a more general but adaptable framework and a more practical strategy for long-term coordination and partnership and attaining specific insights into ecological services should receive more attention and be strengthened in future studies on drylands sustainability.

Key words: dryland, socio-ecological system, coupled human-natural system, adaptability, resilience, sustainability

PENG Yu, ZHANG Qiuying, CHEN Yuanzhan, XU Ning, QIAO Yunfeng, TIAN Chao, Hubert HIRWA, Salif DIOP, Aliou GUISSE, LI Fadong. Resilience, Adaptability, and Regime Shifts Thinking: A Perspective of Dryland Socio-ecology System[J]. Journal of Resources and Ecology, 2021, 12(3): 376-383.

Figures/Tables 4

Fig. 1 Basic conceptual framework for dryland SESs Note: Outcomes of resulted from regime shift represent the essential natural and social elements affected locally or spillover. This framework is modified by summaring different general socio-ecology systems. The general SESs conceptual framework is also applicable to drylands but needs to be adapted and modified according to their characteristics. More specific applications and examples are described in more details in sections 2.1-2.4.

Fig. 2 Dryland Regime Shift detecting workflow

Fig. 3 Changes in the prevalence of top term words Note: Left part indicated the popular duration of each top term words. The strength showed the popularity of term words in the interior of the field. And the red bar presents the duration when the term words were regarded as a hot study. The right part showed the co-citation relationship of term words in the temporal dimension. Term words in years are distinguished by different colors. And the keywords were ranked and plotted by their popularity. All the raw data was collected in the web of sciences by June 2020.

Fig. 4 Core scientific questions and challenges for dryland SESs

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