Resilience Theory

A conceptual framework for analysing how coupled social–ecological systems absorb disturbances, reorganize internal structure and processes, and continue to deliver core functions and services over time, including by returning to a prior state, adapting to changed conditions, or transforming into a new regime.

A framework describing a system’s capacity to absorb disturbances and reorganize while retaining essential structure, functions and feedbacks (including the possibility of thresholds and alternative stable states); in agroecosystems and forests it frames how management, diversity and feedbacks influence persistence, recovery and potential regime shifts.