Resilience quantifies the ability of a system to remain in or return to its current state following disturbance. Due to inconsistent terminology and usage of resilience frameworks, quantitative resilience studies are challenging, and resilience is often treated as an abstract concept rather than a measurable system characteristic. We used a novel, spatially explicit stakeholder engagement process to quantify social-ecological resilience to fire, in light of modeled social-ecological fire risk, across the non-fire-adapted Sonoran Desert Ecosystem in Arizona, USA. Depending on its severity and the characteristics of the ecosystem, fire as a disturbance has the potential to drive ecological state change. As a result, fire regime change is of increasing concern as global change and management legacies alter the distribution and flammability of fuels. Because management and use decisions impact resources and ecological processes, social and ecological factors must be evaluated together to predict resilience to fire. We found highest fire risk in the central and eastern portions of the study area, where flammable fuels occur with greater density and frequency and managers reported fewer management resources than in other locations. We found lowest fire resilience in the southeastern portion of the study area, where combined ecological and social factors, including abundant fuels, few management resources, and little evidence of past institutional adaptability, indicated that sites were least likely to retain their current characteristics and permit achievement of current management objectives. Analyzing ecological and social characteristics together permits regional managers to predict the effects of changing fire regimes across large, multi-jurisdictional landscapes and to consider where to direct resources. This study brought social and ecological factors together into a common spatial framework to produce vulnerability maps; our methods may inform researchers and managers in other systems facing novel disturbance and spatially variable resilience.

中文翻译：

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估计社会生态恢复力：索诺兰沙漠的火灾管理未来

弹性量化了系统在受到干扰后保持或返回当前状态的能力。由于弹性框架的术语和使用不一致，定量弹性研究具有挑战性，弹性通常被视为抽象概念而不是可衡量的系统特征。我们使用了一种新颖的、空间明确的利益相关者参与过程，根据模拟的社会生态火灾风险，在美国亚利桑那州的非适应火灾的索诺兰沙漠生态系统中量化社会生态对火灾的恢复能力。根据其严重程度和生态系统的特征，火灾作为干扰有可能推动生态状态的变化。因此，随着全球变化和管理遗产改变燃料的分布和可燃性，火势变化越来越受到关注。由于管理和使用决策会影响资源和生态过程，因此必须一起评估社会和生态因素以预测火灾恢复能力。我们发现研究区中部和东部的火灾风险最高，那里的易燃燃料密度和频率更高，管理人员报告的管理资源比其他地方少。我们发现研究区东南部的火灾恢复力最低，结合生态和社会因素，包括丰富的燃料、很少的管理资源以及过去制度适应性的证据很少，表明这些地点最不可能保留其当前特征和许可实现当前的管理目标。共同分析生态和社会特征使区域管理人员能够预测跨大型、多辖区景观变化的火灾状况的影响，并考虑将资源引向何处。这项研究将社会和生态因素结合到一个共同的空间框架中，以制作脆弱性地图；我们的方法可以为其他面临新干扰和空间可变弹性的系统中的研究人员和管理人员提供信息。