Conceptualizing and Measuring the ‘Economy’ Dimension in the Evaluation of Socio-Ecological Resilience: A Brief Commentary

Abstract

Resilience is the capacity of an ecosystem to tolerate disturbance without collapsing into a state controlled by a different set of environmental conditions and processes. Despite the growing importance of economic resilience, this concept has not been yet carefully defined or satisfactory measured within the issue of socio-ecological resilience of both natural (forest) and human-derived (agricultural) eco-systems. Investigating economic resilience in a rapidly changing landscape is important for e.g. sustainable land management and conservation of ecosystem services under intense and increasing human pressure. This paper presents an overview of definitions and indicators of economic resilience and comments on some possible measurements of this concept that derived from the socio-ecological literature. The study is intended to contribute to this deserving issue in the light of the (increasingly complex) relationships between the environment, the social dimension, and the economic system.