A review of social-ecological system resilience: Mechanism, assessment and management

Social-ecological system (SES) resilience involves the large information and complex relationships of nature, society and economy. To promote multi-disciplinary integration to jointly balance current well-being and long-term sustainability, it is necessary to sort resilience studies on different perspectives into a comprehensive framework to establish interdisciplinary consensus. Based on literature analysis and review, this paper presents an analytical framework for resilience in regional management, and gives a review of SES resilience studies in terms of mechanism, assessment, and management. We outline the current state of resilience research, identify the remaining challenges, and make key recommendations for future research. Our recommendations include promoting interdisciplinary consensus, emphasising dynamic adaptation processes, synthesizing multiple systems and scales, building comprehensive databases, and using mixed methods approach. The paper offers a framework for researchers, practitioners and policy makers to have a more comprehensive understanding of resilience as a whole, and thus helps navigate more fully the challenge of adapting complex resource and environmental problems.