Resilience in the face of climate change temporalities: dynamic processes in coastal social–ecological systems
摘要
Social–ecological systems (SESs) are experiencing increasing vulnerability to climate change. Enhancing their resilience requires interdisciplinary approaches that allow the co-construction of adaptation strategies while explicitly accounting for the temporality of environmental changes. In this paper, we propose an analysis of resilience processes that distinguishes between endogenous intrinsic resilience and exogenous imported resilience. Endogenous intrinsic resilience refers to the inherent ecological and social properties of a system that enable it to resist, absorb, and adapt to change. Exogenous imported resilience refers to externally driven interventions that, when progressively appropriated and institutionalised, may be integrated into the system and contribute to a dynamic resilience trajectory. The proposed analytical approach is illustrated through the analysis of three contrasting coastal SESs in mainland France and overseas territories. We consider three types of change—slow and progressive changes, abrupt but recurrent events, and abrupt and unprecedented disturbances—associated with multiple climatic drivers, including temperature increase, heatwaves, rainfall variability, flooding, and sea-level rise. This approach facilitates the analysis of past dynamics by identifying resilience processes according to the pace and nature of change and helps to identify conditions under which exogenous measures may foster the adoption of transformational adaptations. More broadly, this study paves the way for interdisciplinary discussions on SES resilience by highlighting the interactions between ecological dynamics, social processes, and governance arrangements in the context of accelerating climate change.