Building resilience in lagoon social-ecological systems: A local-level perspective

Building resilience in integrated human and nature systems or social–ecological systems (SES) is key for sustainability. Therefore, developing ways of assessing resilience is of practical as well as theo-retical significance. We approached the issue by focusing on the local level and using five lagoon systems from various parts of the world for illus-tration. We used a framework based on four cate-gories of factors for building resilience: (1) learning to live with change and uncertainty; (2) nurturing diversity for reorganization and renewal; (3) com-bining different kinds of knowledge; and (4) cre-ating opportunity for self-organization. Under each category, the cases generated a number of items for building resilience, and potential surrogates of resilience, that is, variables through which the persistence of SES emerging through change can be assessed. The following factors were robust across all five lagoon SES cases: learning from cri-sis, responding to change, nurturing ecological memory, monitoring the environment, and build-ing capacity for self-organization and conflict management. Key words: resilience; adaptive renewal cycles; lagoons; monitoring; knowledge; diversity; self-organization; social–ecological systems; institu-tions; governance; Brazil