Abstract
Meeting global targets that maintain temperatures at 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels while adapting to the growing impacts of climate change requires significant and rapid societal change. Within this context, there has been growing interest in building community resilience to shocks and stressors and as a forward-looking process. Yet while there has been extensive attention to conceptual aspects, there has been much less on how this can be achieved in practice. This research worked with three communities in Scotland (UK) regularly exposed to flooding and other integrated challenges to learn from action about community resilience building. A carefully developed four-tiered transdisciplinary approach was applied that included: relationship-building; enhancing capacities to work with interconnections; enabling processes; and supportive action-oriented research. The findings of the analysis of the system dynamics that were occurring during the resilience-building process highlight that it is a complex and messy social process. Yet, it also shows that if quality and sufficient quantity of support and time to help surface and deliberate on underlying assumptions about communities and change is provided, it can be possible to stimulate emergence of beneficial reinforcing social dynamics that begin to support collaborative and systemic action. To further advance know how about resilience building, much greater focus will be needed on the ‘how’ of resilience. This, in turn, will require new framings of, and approaches for, community resilience and new framings of research, knowledge and knowing.
References
Aldrich DP, Meyer MA (2015) Social Capital and Community Resilience. Am Behav Sci 59:254–269
AlWaer H, Cooper I (2020) Changing the focus: viewing design-led events within collaborative planning. Sustainability 12:3365
AlWaer H, Rintoul S, Cooper I (2021) An investigation into decision-making and delivery activities following design-led events in collaborative planning. Archnet-IJAR. https://doi.org/10.1108/ARCH-10-2020-0246
Arkesteijn M, van Mierlo B, Leeuwis C (2015) The need for reflexive evaluation approaches in development cooperation. Evaluation 21:99–115
Ayal DY, Abshare MW, Desta S, Leal Filho W (2017) Pastoralists and farmers coping and adaptation strategies to climate variability and their perceived success in Ethiopia. In: Leal Filho W, Belay S, Kalangu J, Menas W, Munishi P, Musiyiwa K (eds) Climate change management. Springer, pp 457–473
Barrett G (2015) Deconstructing community. Sociol Rural 55:182–204
Bassett TJ, Fogelman C (2013) Déjà vu or something new? The adaptation concept in the climate change literature. Geoforum 48:42–53
Berkes F, Ross H (2013) Community resilience: toward an integrated approach. Soc Nat Resour 26:5–20
Berkes F, Ross H (2016) Panarchy and community resilience: Sustainability science and policy implications. Environ Sci Policy 61:185–193
Bhattacharyya J (2004) Theorizing community development. J Community Devt Soc 34:5–34
Bisschop LCJ, Strobl S, Viollaz JS (2018) Getting into deep water: coastal land loss and state-corporate crime in the Louisiana bayou. Br J Criminol 58:886–905
Brown K (2016) Resilience, development and global change. Routledge, London
Burnell J (2013) Small change: Understanding cultural action as a resource for unlocking assets and building resilience in communities. Community Dev J 48:134–150
Câmpeanu CN, Fazey I (2014) Adaptation and pathways of change and response: a case study from Eastern Europe. Glob Environ Change Human Policy Dimens 28:351–367
Cavaye J, Ross H (2019) Community resilience and community development: What mutual opportunities arise from interactions between the two concepts? Community Dev 50:181–200
Chandler D (2014) Resilience: the governance of complexity. Routledge, London
Chapin FS III, Knapp CN, Brinkman TJ, Bronen R, Cochran P (2016) Community-empowered adaptation for self-reliance. Curr Opin Environ Sustain 19:67–75
Choudhury MUI, Haque CE (2016) “We are more scared of the power elites than the floods”: adaptive capacity and resilience of wetland community to flash flood disasters in Bangladesh. Int J Disaster Risk Reduct 19:145–158
Connell J (2016) Last days in the Carteret Islands? Climate change, livelihoods and migration on coral atolls. Asia Pac Viewp 57:3–15
Cretney R (2014) Resilience for whom? Emerging critical geographies of socio-ecological resilience. Geogr Compass 8:627–640
Currenti R, Pearce T, Salabogi T, Vuli L, Salabogi K, Doran B, Kitson R, Ford J (2019) Adaptation to climate change in an interior Pacific Island village: a case study of Nawairuku, Ra, Fiji. Hum Ecol 47:65–80
Cutter SL (2020) Community resilience, natural hazards, and climate change: Is the present a prologue to the future? Nor Geogr Tidsskr 74:200–208
Doherty B, Ensor J, Heron T, Prado P (2019) Food systems resilience: Towards an Interdisciplinary research agenda. Emerald Open Res 1:1–16
Doloisio N, Vanderlinden JP (2020) The perception of permafrost thaw in the Sakha Republic (Russia): Narratives, culture and risk in the face of climate change. Polar Sci 26:100589
Espeso-Molinero P, Pastor-Alfonso MJ (2020) Governance, community resilience, and indigenous tourism in Nahá, Mexico. Sustainability (Switzerland) 12:5973
Fazey I, Pettorelli N, Kenter JO, Wagatora D, Schuett D (2011) Maladaptive trajectories of change in Makira, Solomon Islands. Glob Environ Change 21:1275–1289
Fazey I, Wise RM, Lyon C, Câmpeanu C, Moug P, Davies TE (2016) Past and future adaptation pathways. Clim Dev 8:26–44
Fazey I, Carmen E, Rao-Williams J, Hodgson A, Fraser J, Cox L, Scott D, Tabor P, Robeson D, Searle BA, Lyon C, Kenter J, Murray B (2017) Community resilience to climate change: outcomes of the scottish borders climate resilient communities project. University of Dundee, Centre for Environmental Change and Human Resilience, Dundee, UK
Fazey I, Carmen E, Chapin FSI, Ross H, Rao-Williams J, Lyon C, Connon ILC, Searle BA, Knox K (2018a) Community resilience for a 1.5oC world. Curr Opin Environ Sustain 31:30–40
Fazey I, Schäpke N, Caniglia G, Patterson J, Hultman J, van Mierlo B, Säwe F, Wiek A, Wittmayer J, Aldunce P, Al Waer H, Battacharya N, Bradbury H, Carmen E, Colvin J, Cvitanovic C, D’Souza M, Gopel M, Goldstein B, Hämäläinen T, Harper G, Henfry T, Hodgson A, Howden MS, Kerr A, Klaes M, Lyon C, Midgley G, Moser S, Mukherjee N, Müller K, O’Brien K, O’Connell DA, Olsson P, Page G, Reed MS, Searle B, Silvestri G, Spaiser V, Strasser T, Tschakert P, Uribe-Calvo N, Waddell S, Rao-Williams J, Wise R, Wolstenholme R, Woods M, Wyborn C (2018b) Ten essentials for action-oriented and second order energy transitions, transformations and climate change research. Energy Res Soc Sci 40:54–70
Flyvberg B (2001) Making social science matter: why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again. Cambridge University Press
Friend R, Moench M (2013) What is the purpose of urban climate resilience? Implications for addressing poverty and vulnerability. Urban Climate 6:98–113
Greenwood DJ, Levin M (2007) Introduction to action research: social research for social change, 2nd edn. SAGE Publications Inc, Thousand Oaks
Hagmann J, Chuma E, Murwira K, Connolly M, Ficarelli P (2002) Success factors in integrated natural resource management R & D: lessons from practice. Conserv Ecol 5:26271826
Hahn T, Olsson P, Folke C, Johansson K (2006) Trust-building, knowledge generation and organizational innovations: The role of a bridging organization for adaptive comanagement of a wetland landscape around Kristianstad, Sweden. Hum Ecol 34:573–592
Haverkamp J (2021) Collaborative survival and the politics of livability: Towards adaptation otherwise. World Dev 137:105152
Henfrey T, Giangrande N (2017) Resilience and community action in the Transition Movement. In: Henfrey T, Maschowski G, Penha-Lopes G (eds) Resilience, community action and societal transformation. Permanent Publications, pp 87–110
Höijer B, Lidskog R, Uggla Y (2006) Facing dilemmas: Sense-making and decision-making in late modernity. Futures 38:350–366
IPCC (2018) Summary for policy makers: Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty.
Jaakkola JJK, Juntunen S, Näkkäläjärvi K (2018) The holistic effects of climate change on the culture, well-being, and health of the Saami, the only indigenous people in the European Union. Curr Environ health reports 5:401–417
Jacob C, McDaniels T, Hinch S (2010) Indigenous culture and adaptation to climate change: Sockeye salmon and the St’át’imc people. Mitig Adapt Strat Glob Change 15:859–876
Jordan JC (2018) Deconstructing resilience: why gender and power matter in responding to climate stress in Bangladesh. Clim Dev 11:1–13
Kazmierczak A, Cavan G, Connelly A, Lindley S (2015) Mapping flood disadvanatge in Scotland. Scottish Government
Kenter JO, Hyde T, Christie M, Fazey I (2011) The importance of deliberation in valuing ecosystem services in developing countries—Evidence from the Solomon Islands. Glob Environ Change 2:505–521
Kenter JO, O’Brien L, Hockley N, Ravenscroft N, Fazey I, Irvine KN, Reed MS, Christie M, Brady E, Bryce R, Church A, Cooper N, Davies A, Evely A, Everard M, Fish R, Fisher JA, Jobstvogt N, Molloy C, Orchard-Webb J, Ranger S, Ryan M, Watson V, Williams S (2015) What are shared and social values of ecosystems? Ecol Econ 111:86–99
Kläy A, Zimmermann AB, Schneider F (2015) Rethinking science for sustainable development: reflexive interaction for a paradigm transformation. Futures 65:72–85
Magis K (2010) Community resilience: an indicator of social sustainability. Soc Nat Resour 23:401–416
Matarrita-Cascante D, Brennan MA (2012) Conceptualizing community development in the twenty-first century. Community Dev 43:293–305
Maxwell N (2007) From knowledge to wisdom: a revolution for science and the humanities, 2nd edn. Pentire Press, London
McLean M (2016) Strikers and townsfolk: civic culture and industrial relations in post-war Hawick. Intl J Reg Local Hist 11:75–90
Mulligan M, Steele W, Rickards L, Fünfgeld H (2016) Keywords in planning: what do we mean by ‘community resilience’? Int Plan Stud 21:348–361
Norris FH, Stevens SP, Pfefferbaum B, Wyche KF, Pfefferbaum RL (2008) Community resilience as a metaphor, theory, set of capacities, and strategy for disaster readiness. Am J Community Psychol 41:127–150
O’Donnell EC, Lamond JE, Thorne CR (2018) Learning and Action Alliance framework to facilitate stakeholder collaboration and social learning in urban flood risk management. Environ Sci Policy 80:1–8
Pelling M (2011) Adaptation to climate change: from resilience to transformation. Routledge, London
Pelling M, Manuel-Navarrete D (2011) From resilience to transformation: the adaptive cycle in two Mexican urban centers. Ecol Soc 16:26268885
Pfefferbaum B, Pfefferbaum RL, Van Horn RL (2015) Community resilience interventions: participatory, assessment-based, action-oriented processes. Am Behav Sci 59:238–253
Rahman HMT, Mia ME, Ford JD, Robinson BE, Hickey GM (2018) Livelihood exposure to climatic stresses in the north-eastern floodplains of Bangladesh. Land Use Policy 79:199–214
Ramcilovic-Suominen S, Kotilainen J (2020) Power relations in community resilience and politics of shifting cultivation in Laos. For Policy Econ 115:102159
Revell P, Dinnie E (2020) Community resilience and narratives of community empowerment in Scotland. Community Development Journal 55:218–236
Revi A, Satterthwaite D, Aragón-Durand F, Corfee-Morlot J, Kiunsi RBR, Pelling M, Roberts D, Solecki W, Gajjar SP, Sverdlik A (2014) Towards transformative adaptation in cities: the IPCC’s fifth assessment. Environ Urban 26:11–28
Rolfe G (1998) The theory-practice gap in nursing: From research-based practice to practitioner-based research. J Adv Nurs 28:672–679
Ross H, Berkes F (2014) Research approaches for understanding, enhancing, and monitoring community resilience. Soc Nat Resour 27:787–804
Schneider P, Lawrence J, Glavovic B, Ryan E, Blackett P (2020) A rising tide of adaptation action: Comparing two coastal regions of Aotearoa-New Zealand. Clim Risk Manag 30:100244
Sharpe B, Leicester G, Hodgson A, Lyon A, Fazey I (2016) Three Horizons: a powerful practice for transformation. Ecol Soc 21:47
Sitas N, Reyers B, Cundill G, Prozesky HE, Nel JL, Esler KJ (2016) Fostering collaboration for knowledge and action in disaster management in South Africa. Curr Opin Environ Sustain 19:94–102
Sterman JD (2000) Business dynamics—systems thinking and modeling for a complex world. McGraw Hill, Boston
Umpleby SA (2016) Second-order cybernetics as a fundamental revolution in science. Construct Found 11:455–465
Voß JP, Newig J, Kastens B, Monstadt J, Nölting B (2007) Steering for sustainable development: a typology of problems and strategies with respect to ambivalence, uncertainty and distributed power. J Environ Plann Policy Manage 9:193–212
Wahl DC (2016) Designing regenerative cultures. Triarchy Press, Axminster
Werritty A, Sugden D (2013) Climate change and Scotland: recent trends and impacts. Earth Environ Sci Trans R Soc Edinb 103:133–147
Wilson GA (2013) Community resilience, policy corridors and the policy challenge. Land Use Policy 31:298–310
Wilson GA (2014) Community resilience, transitional corridors and macro-scalar lock-in effects. Environ Policy Gov 24:42–59
Woodruff S, BenDor TK, Strong AL (2018) Fighting the inevitable: infrastructure investment and coastal community adaptation to sea level rise. Syst Dyn Rev 34:48–77
Zautra A, Hall J, Murray K (2008) Community development and community resilience: An integrative approach. Community Dev 39:130–147
Acknowledgements
We express thanks to the many different and often inspiring participants involved in the SBCRC project who made this work possible. The project was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Climate Justice programme. We thank two generous reviewers who helped improve this manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Fazey, I., Carmen, E., Ross, H. et al. Social dynamics of community resilience building in the face of climate change: the case of three Scottish communities. Sustain Sci 16, 1731–1747 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-00950-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-00950-x