Research and analysis

Exploring the use of resilience concepts in catchment management: summary

Published 22 March 2024

Applies to England

1. Chief Scientist’s Group report summary

This project explores what is meant by resilience, and how it is currently understood and used in the Environment Agency. The findings inform a framework that could help the Environment Agency to implement resilience concepts in practice to improve environmental outcomes.

1.1 Background

Resilience has become a widely used term in environmental management and policy, often described as the capacity of a system to absorb disturbances and still function. However, definitions and their interpretation vary. An underlying assumption of resilience concepts is that greater resilience has the potential to improve environmental outcomes or to enable systems to cope better with disturbance.

1.2 Approach

We explored resilience concepts and their application through a literature review, commissioned expert reviews, and internal staff interviews and workshops. We then explored the practical application of these concepts in three catchment studies that focused on resilience thresholds for algal blooms, the way drought protection measures affect resilience, and the nature of ecological community resilience in rivers. All three studies involved collaboration with operational staff involved in practical management.

1.3 Results

The literature review looked at two different interpretations of resilience. The first, ‘bounce-back’ resilience, addresses the ability to recover from a shock. A second, ‘bounce-forward’ concerns adaptation and transformation, where a system moves to a different state after a shock. The review also found that resilience is sometimes seen as a system property and sometimes as a target, but it is not always clear which is being used. Despite the large literature base, few papers provided examples of practical applications of resilience.

Environment Agency staff recognised resilience as a useful concept and resilience concepts are embedded in multiple Environment Agency plans and strategies and are being applied to projects. However, the definition of resilience varies, with staff working on applying strategy tending to have a broader view of resilience and a desire for a single, organisation-wide definition, whereas staff working in operational roles had more context specific understanding.

The three case studies highlighted the importance of understanding the system being considered, since resilience is context specific. They showed how identifying thresholds and measurable resilience characteristics can help assess the state of a catchment with regards to an environmental risk or desired outcome.

The findings informed a framework to assist the practical application of resilience. This involves identifying values and desired outcomes, describing the system, identifying measurable resilience characteristics, identifying and implementing management interventions, and evaluating and learning from these interventions. We suggest applying and refining this framework with further practical examples.

1.4 Conclusions

Resilience concepts have the potential to improve environmental outcomes in catchment management where systems are understood sufficiently to identify how they can be moved closer to or further away from a specific threshold. Definitions of resilience are context specific. However, a shared, organisation-wide understanding of resilience, including the different ways it can be framed, would support the Environment Agency in the application and use of resilience concepts.

1.5 Publication details

This summary relates to information from the following project:

• Title: Exploring the use of resilience concepts in catchment management
• March 2024
• Project manager: Stuart Allen, Chief Scientist’s Group

This project was delivered by the Environment Agency’s Chief Scientist’s Group, which provides scientific knowledge, tools and techniques to enable us to protect and manage the environment as effectively as possible.

Enquiries: research@environment-agency.gov.uk.

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