What is Resilience?
Resilience - from Latin Resilire (Italian ri salare), to ‘bounce back’. Essentially, resilience is the capacity for a system to return to it’s initial state. This is a special case of controllability, given we want to keep the systems’ state variables inside some set of stable state variables. Systems typically have multiple stable states, and when they are reached they typically orbit an attractor. This theory of resilience is appropriate mostly for linear systems. A different theory arises when considering Complex Adaptive Systems.
Resilience in Complex Adaptive Systems
Resilience in CASs is known as ecological resilience. Ecological resilience acknowledges the unpredictability of systems and emphasises a systems’ ability to absorb disturbances as the function of the system. Ecological resilience emphasises that a resilient system returns not to one stable state, but to many possible equilibrium states. Resilience in CASs also acknowledge that boundary conditions for a system may also change.
Adaptive resilience is another method by which CASs are thought to deal with disturbances. This approach emphasises the CASs ability to learn and adapt to the unpredictable dynamics of the landscape, which is always changing. This idea is based on a CASs ability to learn and self-organise.
The manner in which a system may react to disturbances is defined as a systems’ “adaptability” and “transformability”. Adaptability is the capacity for a system to ‘cope’ with the challenges presented, whereas transformability is the capacity for a system to create a fundamentally new system in the face of a changing landscape. Systems with high adaptability focus on adjusting the system while preserving its basic characteristics, whereas systems with high transformability will change function and systemic logic by creating new mechanisms to respond to a disruption.