Socio-ecological vulnerability and resilience in an arena of rapid environmental change : community adaptation to climate variability in the Upper Zambezi floodplain
Socio-ecological vulnerability and resilience in an arena of rapid environmental change : community adaptation to climate variability in the Upper Zambezi floodplain
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快速环境变化领域的社会生态脆弱性和恢复力：赞比西河上游洪泛区社区对气候变化的适应
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发表时间：
2008
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通讯作者：
L. Flint
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作者：
L. Flint
近几十年来，人们对生态系统提出了前所未有的要求，以满足对食物、水、纤维和能源日益增长的需求。这些需求给生态系统平衡带来了压力，耗尽了自然环境替代消耗的生物容量的能力，削弱了提供空气和水净化、废物处理和美观环境等生态系统服务的能力。在社会和经济发展的愿望与环境可持续性之间存在着明显的紧张关系。导致生态系统产品和服务减少的直接变化驱动因素包括栖息地变化、入侵物种、过度开发、污染以及气候变率和变化。这些过程有可能削弱社会生态复原力，提高对环境和社会经济变化的敏感性。本文旨在讨论社会生态脆弱性和恢复力可以检查的科学方法，特别是解决这些广泛问题所需的跨学科方法。它还将分析社会生态复原力和对脆弱性的适应的性质。这是在讨论涵盖影响弹性的政治、经济和社会文化动态的历史和当代生产的背景下进行的。该研究考虑了洪泛区生态系统、人类定居地点、生产力和“水力文明”的出现。这里讨论的一个例子是赞比亚西部赞比西河上游流域的Bulozi“自然”洪泛平原，目前正在表现出生物物理和社会经济变化。现在的洛齐人的祖先居住在这片洪泛平原上，他们利用平原提供的生态产品和服务，创造了强大而充满活力的政治经济，并在该地区占据主导地位，利用剩余的食物来专业化，组建军队并利用经济机会。今天，布洛齐是一个相对欠发达的地区，这种情况可能会因气候变化而恶化，但这些只是对社会造成的脆弱性的额外压力，这些脆弱性随着时间的推移而变得根深蒂固。本文确定了布洛齐地区脆弱性的产生以及提高恢复力所需的适应能力。它还讨论了社区适应气候变化领域的最新活动，并得出结论认为，人们适应外源性和内源性压力并保持社会生态系统（SES）完整性的能力在很大程度上取决于他们从本地“所有权”立场与压力源接触的能力。这还取决于它们获得新能力和使生产活动多样化的能力，以便社会能够重新获得动力、控制和动力，以提高生活水平，同时保持社会经济体系的完整性。
People have made unprecedented demands on ecosystems in recent decades to meet growing demands for food, water, fibre and energy. These demands have placed pressure on ecosystem balances, depleted the ability of the natural environment to replace biocapacity consumed and weakened the capacity to deliver ecosystem services such as purification of air and water, waste disposal and aesthetically pleasing environments. There is an apparent tension between the aspirations of social and economic development and environmental sustainability. Direct drivers of change that engender a reduction in ecosystem goods and services include habitat change, invasive species, over exploitation, pollution and, climate variability and change. These processes threaten to diminish socio-ecological resilience and heighten sensitivity to both environmental and socio-economic change. This paper seeks to discuss the scientific ways in which socio-ecological vulnerability and resilience can be examined, in particular the inter disciplinarity of approach necessary to address these wide ranging issues. It will also analyse the nature of socio-ecological resilience and adaptation to vulnerability. This is contextualised in a discussion covering the historical and contemporary production of politico-economic and socio-cultural dynamics affecting resilience. The study considers floodplain ecosystems, sites of human settlement, productivity and the appearance of ‘hydraulic civilisations’. An example discussed here is the Bulozi ‘natural’ floodplain of the Upper Zambezi Valley in western Zambia, currently exhibiting biophysical and socio-economic change. This floodplain was populated by the ancestors of the present Lozi peoples who, using the ecological goods and services offered by the plain, produced a strong and vibrant politicoeconomy that became dominant in the region, using surplus food with which to specialise, raise an army and take advantage of economic opportunities. Today Bulozi is an arena of relative underdevelopment and this condition may become exacerbated by increasing climate dynamics, but these act only as additional stressors to socially created vulnerabilities that became entrenched over time. The paper identifies the production of vulnerability in Bulozi and the adaptive capacity required to increase resilience. It also discusses recent activities in the domain of community adaptation to climate change and concludes that people’s capacity to adapt to exogenous and endogenous pressures and maintain the integrity of the socio-ecological system (SES) depends much on their ability to engage with stressors from a position of autochthonous ‘ownership’. It depends also on their ability to access new capabilities and diversify productive activities so that society can regain a sense of momentum, control and motivation to enhance living standards whilst conserving the integrity of the SES.