Resilience index needed to keep us within planet’s ‘safe operating space’

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Researchers are calling for a ‘resilience index’ to be used as an indicator of policy success instead of the current focus on GDP.

They say that GDP ignores the wider implications of development and provides no information on our ability to live within our planet’s ‘safe operating space’.

In a paper published today [15 November] in the journal One Earth, researchers from the University of Southampton, UCL and the University of East Anglia outline the case for using a resilience index to inform policy decisions, arguing it would be a much more appropriate measure for the modern age than GDP.

“Resilience is about the ability of a system to prepare for, resist, recover and adapt to disturbances in order to function successfully,” says Professor Ian Townend, lead author of the paper from the University of Southampton.

“This invites us to take a more holistic view, accommodating both human and natural components of complex systems that extend across environmental, social and economic domains.”

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was adopted to guide progress when the Great Depression of the 1930’s led to a need for economic growth. Since then, it has become one of the most significant policy indicators.

But there is increasing concern about our use of resources on a finite planet and the growing and interacting pressures of pollution, biodiversity loss and climate change.

That’s prompted scientists to consider a ‘safe operating space’ that ensures humanity has an adequate social foundation, while remaining within sustainable ecological limits (also known as planetary boundaries).

“As we encroach on planetary boundaries, the number of organisms an ecosystem can support is reduced,” says Prof Townend. “Similarly, if we don’t address inequality, embark on conflict, or suffer major disasters, our social foundations are diminished.”

The researchers believe that a resilience index can help policy makers to steer a course through this safe operating space.

Professor Jon French, a coauthor on the paper from UCL, says: “Often what we can measure is what gets done, so it’s important to provide a quantitative measure of resilience at local, national and global scales.

“Necessarily, such a measure will incorporate value judgements. Rather than seeing this as a drawback, this can allow differing views within a society to be captured.

“It also helps decision makers to consider the inherent trade-offs when dealing with systems that extend across social, environment and economic domains.”

In the paper, the researchers provide two examples of how a resilience index might be used at a national and global scale.  

The University of Southampton has developed a model to index the resilience of England’s coastal communities. The model allows decision makers to adjust the relative weight given to different priorities, such as human health, economic damage or habitat loss.

This means stakeholders, such as local government, businesses, or communities, can influence how resilience is quantified based on their specific needs, ensuring decisions reflect a balanced view of competing interests​.

The team applied a similar method on a global scale using existing data sets. They mapped biophysical and social performance measures to index the resilience of 132 countries during 1992 and 2015.

In this illustrative example, the global index revealed a trend towards progress being made on social measures at the expense of biophysical measures of resilience.

The team believe such models could enhance or even replace traditional performance measures, but suggest further development is needed.

“We urgently need to think about how we mobilise a global change in outlook,” says Professor Robert Nicholls, another coauthor on the paper from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia.

“That means moving away from the focus on GDP to measures that track the challenges we face to meet societal needs and recognise that these are inextricably linked to the needs of all life on earth.”

The paper Framing resilience to manage complex environmental systems is published in One Earth and is available online.

The work was supported by the UK Climate Resilience Programme through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

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Contact

Steve Williams, Media Manager, University of Southampton, press@soton.ac.uk or 023 8059 3212.

Notes for editors

The paper Framing resilience to manage complex environmental systems will be published in One Earth. An advanced copy of the paper is available upon request For Interviews with Prof Ian Townsend please contact Steve Williams, Media Manager, University of Southampton press@soton.ac.uk or 023 8059 3212. Images available via link: https://safesend.soton.ac.uk/pickup?claimID=2j83KXRQVXzDADhD&claimPasscode=7HUHXnYFjrYW2pV7 Coastal Communities: Shows the Resilience Index applied to England’s coastal communities using different weightings to prioritise social, economic, or environmental considerations, as well as a combined index. Global index: Shows national populations (size of circle denotes the size of the population) plotted on a social (Y) and biophysical (X) weighted resilience axis. Orange circles are based on data from 1992, while blue circles are based on data from 2015. The black line indicates the track of the index starting in 1992 (open black circle) to 2015 (filled black circle). Green arrows indicate the direction needed to improve global resilience.   Additional information

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