Layman's description

Resilient social-ecological systems is a term that builds on the notion of resilience. It can refer to at least two system characteristics of social-ecological systems: the capacity to absorb shocks and still maintain function on the one hand, and the capacity for renewal, reorganization, development or even transformation on the other. More insight in the constituting elements and processes that influence both forms of resilience and thus constitute resilient systems is a key scientific challenge. Understanding better why some systems withstand environmental pressures and change and keep performing their functions, is of key interest, as the scale of pending global change is hard to predict. Insight in the dynamics of renewal and transformation is important because environments of social-ecological systems can change so much that thresholds are passed that mark the limit of the stability domain of a social-ecological system. Meaning that the system needs to transform to another state.