Given the realities of climate change and sea-level rise, coastal cities around the world are struggling with questions of resilience. Resilience, at its core, is about desirable states of the urban social-ecological system and understanding how to sustain those states in an uncertain and tumultuous future. How do physical conditions, ecological processes, social objectives, human politics, and history shape the prospects for resilience? Most books set out the answer.a This book sets out a process of grappling with holistic resilience from multiple perspectives, drawing on the insights and experiences of more than fifty scholars and practitioners working together to make Jamaica Bay in New York City an example for the world.
Prospects for Resilience establishes a framework for understanding resilience practice in urban watersheds. Using Jamaica Bay'the largest contiguous natural area in New York, home to millions of New Yorkers, and a hub of global air travel with John F. Kennedy International Airport'the authors demonstrate how various components of social-ecological systems interact, ranging from climatic factors to plant populations to human demographics. They also highlight essential tools for creating resilient watersheds, including monitoring and identifying system indicators; computer modeling; green infrastructure; and decision science methods. Finally, they look at the role and importance of a boundary organizationa like the new Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay in coordinating and facilitating resilience work, and consider significant research questions and prospects for the future of urban watersheds.
Prospects for Resilience sets forth an essential foundation of information and advice for researchers, urban planners, students and others who need to create more resilient cities that work with, not against, nature.
Foreword [List of Contributors] [List of Figures]
Part I: Introduction to Resilience in Jamaica Bay Chapter 1: Introduction: Why Prospects for Jamaica Bay Chapter 2: Resilience Practice in Urban Watersheds
Part II: Social-ecological Systems of Jamaica Bay Chapter 3: Dynamics of the Biophysical Systems of Jamaica Bay Chapter 4: Change and Resilience of Jamaica Bay's Ecological Systems Chapter 5: Social-Ecological System Transformation in Jamaica Bay
Part III: Tools for Resilience Practice Chapter 6: Resilience Indicators and Monitoring Chapter 7: Computational Modelling of the Jamaica Bay System Chapter 8: Green Infrastructure as a Climate Change Resiliency Strategy Chapter 9: Application of Decision Science to Resilience Management in Jamaica Bay Chapter 10: Building Community Resilience Practice Capacity
Part IV: Prospects for Resilience in Jamaica Bay Chapter 11: Resilience Practice and Process and Product
Glossary Acknowledgments Index
"A welcome contribution to social-ecological system restoration especially of coastal areas. It demonstrates how complex ecological restoration will become by taking into account social drivers and issues...However, it is also clear that the book is just a first step and that resilience science is, just as resilience practice, a learning process in which a lot of steps have still to be taken. The volume will surely contribute to the way forward."
