Approach to the study of resilience

Focus

Engineering

Ability of a system to return after the disturbance to the original equilibrium. The focus is on the condition of stability around the equilibrium point (Odum, 1965)

Ecological

Quantity of a disturbance a system can absorb before falling in a condition of equilibrium of inferior level, governed by different set of processes. The focus is on the behaviour of the system “oriented to equilibrium”. The approach implies the existence of multiple equilibriums (Holling, 1973)

Adaptive system (socio-ecological)

Ability of the system to advance the change as a consequence of an unforeseen event to minimize the negative impact. The focus is on the adaptive abilities of the system and the learning mechanism (Carpenter, Walker, Holling 2001; Folke, 2006)