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 networks and dynamics affecting resilience.
The study considers floodplain ecosystems, the sites of human settlement, economic activities 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 politico-economy 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 discusses the production of vulnerability in Bulozi and the adaptive capacity required to increase resilience.
The paper concludes that people's capacity to adapt to exogenous and endogenous pressures and maintain the cohesion of the socio-ecological system (SES) depends much on their ability to deal with stressors from a position of autochthonous (indigenous) ‘ownership'. It depends also on their ability to adapt current practices 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.
