Adapting Institutions
Governance, Complexity and Social-Ecological Resilience

Presents cutting-edge insights into adapting institutions that build social-ecological resilience to complex multi-scale environmental change.

Global environmental change is occurring at a rate faster than humans have ever experienced. Climate change and the loss of ecosystem services are the two main global environmental crises facing us today. As a result, there is a need for better understanding of the specific and general resilience of networked ecosystems, cities, organisations and institutions to cope with change. In this book, an international team of experts provide cutting-edge insights into building the resilience and adaptive governance of complex social-ecological systems. Through a set of case studies, it focuses on the social science dimension of ecosystem management in the context of global change, in a move to bridge existing gaps between resilience, sustainability and social science. Using empirical examples ranging from local to global levels, views from a variety of disciplines are integrated to provide an essential resource for scholars, policy-makers and students, seeking innovative approaches to governance.

List of figures
List of contributors
Foreword
Acknowledgements
List of acronyms and abbreviations
1. Adapting institutions, governance and complexity: an introduction Emily Boyd and Carl Folke
Part I. Adapting Local Institutions, Networks, Leadership and Learning: 2. Knowledge, social networks, and leadership - setting the stage for the development of adaptive institutions? Beatrice Crona and Orjan Bodin
3. Adaptive capacity of local institutions - the case of taboo forests in southern Madagascar Maria Tengo and Jacob von Heland
4. The reality of adaptive management: tracing farmers' responses to disturbances in irrigation systems in Nepal Ingela Ternstrom
5. Creating incentives for increased public engagement in ecosystem management through urban commons Johan Colding
Part II. Adapting and Governing Public Institutions for Uncertainty and Complexity: 6. Adaptive capacity and the ecostate Andreas Duit
7. Food systems and adaptive governance: the case of the 2005 food crisis in Niger Sirkku Juhola
8. Public-private partnerships in the provision of environmental governance: a case of disaster management Emma L. Tompkins and Lisa-Ann Hurlston
Part III. Adapting Multilevel Institutions to Environmental Crisis: 9. Double complexity - information technology and reconfigurations in adaptive governance Victor Galaz
10. Adaptive governance and natural hazards: the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the governance of coastal ecosystems in Sri Lanka Alison Ashlin
11. Adapting to global climate change: evaluating resilience in two networked policy institutions Emily Boyd
12. Conclusions: adapting institutions and resilience Emily Boyd and Carl Folke
Index.