HESS Opinions: A conceptual framework for assessing socio-hydrological resilience under change

Mao, Feng; Clark, Julian; Karpouzoglou, Timothy; Dewulf, Art; Buytaert, Wouter; Hannah, David

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3655-2017

Articles | Volume 21, issue 7

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3655-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3655-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 7

Opinion article

|

20 Jul 2017

Opinion article |

| 20 Jul 2017

HESS Opinions: A conceptual framework for assessing socio-hydrological resilience under change

Feng Mao, Julian Clark, Timothy Karpouzoglou, Art Dewulf, Wouter Buytaert, and David Hannah

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Final revised paper (published on 20 Jul 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 19 Oct 2016)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'overall review', Anna Wesselink, 07 Nov 2016
- AC1: 'Answer to Dr Wesselink', Feng Mao, 28 Nov 2016
RC2: 'Review of Mao et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 28 Nov 2016
- AC2: 'Response to Anonymous Referee #2', Feng Mao, 21 Dec 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by Editor and Referees) (02 Jan 2017) by Hilary McMillan

AR by Feng Mao on behalf of the Authors (20 Feb 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by Editor and Referees) (03 Mar 2017) by Hilary McMillan

AR by Feng Mao on behalf of the Authors (13 Mar 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (21 Mar 2017) by Hilary McMillan

RR by Anna Wesselink (18 Apr 2017)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (28 Apr 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The changes made by the authors have improved my understanding of this very interesting paper. I however challenge the authors one last time on the following points, which have partly been the basis of my previous round of comments.

I do not fully agree that coupled human water systems can be ‘further’ classified into socio-hydrological and hydro-social systems. This goes in contradiction to Pande and Sivapalan (2016, WIRES Water), on which my comment 1 was based. Socio-hydrology is post-positivist (allows multiple perspectives but believes in existence of underlying truth) while hydro-sociology, if it is not compatible with socio-hydrology has to be subjective. If so, I wonder if resilience framework can at all be confidently built on a subjective approach. Please clarify or discuss in the text accordingly.

Response to comment 2: I agree that a framework should go beyond it being normative. But a socio-hydrological system doesn’t stop being one if one of the bi-directional feedbacks stops working. That is, two or more sub-systems form a socio-hydrological system even when the coupling between them switches on and off (dynamic coupling). In context of socio-hydrological resilience that the authors are proposing, I wonder why sub-system resilience should be any different and independent from socio-hydrological system resilience that it contributes to. In this regard, I would request the authors to reconsider their response to this comment.

Response to comment 3: I agree, but the concern for resilience at any point in time is not for a subsystem in isolation. Please see the previous point.

The conceptual approach is lot clearer now given that the authors have now defined their notion of resilience in terms of absorptive, adaptive and transformative capacities and that their resilience canvas is inspired by the first two dimensions. If this is an exhaustive definition, i.e. we are not missing any other type of capacity, other than the 3 listed, then all socio-hydrological systems (as well as their evolution in time) can be mapped on this canvas. I agree if the authors agree that 3 capacities are indeed exhaustive in defining system resilience.

Response to comment 9: Why a toy model would have helped is to demonstrate that 'resilient water management strategies' would most likely be path dependent, depending on system characteristics and within-system feedbacks. While the new examples and explanations help tremendously, a further discussion of this and other points raised by the authors in this response, through a simple toy model, would be of great help. Especially to communicate very valuable opinions to an audience that is more comfortable with mathematical tools (than conceptual tools).

Response to comment 12: “(2) Where do adaptive capacities come from?
We identified three framings of resilience and human-water couplings, and argued that adaptive capacity may come from water sub-system, human sub-system or human-water interactions. For each resilience source, there are specific strategies to enhance adaptive capacity (Section 3, last paragraphs of Section 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3).”

I would have to disagree, even at conceptual level, with the authors that adaptive capacity can come from water sub-system, human sub-system and human-water interactions independently if the subsystems are interlinked– if this is what the authors are implying. Strategies that target specific resilience sources may not work effectively if it ignores the interaction of that sub-system with another. Note that inter-linkages make the system non-additive in terms of its sub-systems. Adaptive capacity from one sub-system may be at conflict (or in synergy) with adaptive capacity from another sub-system due to the interlinkages. This may nullify (or amplify) the effect of these sources on the overall system resilience. This also connects to the previous point, that path dependency appears as a result of interactions between the subsystems on top of its sub-system dynamics.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (further review by Editor) (30 Apr 2017) by Hilary McMillan

AR by Feng Mao on behalf of the Authors (21 May 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (30 May 2017) by Hilary McMillan

AR by Feng Mao on behalf of the Authors (08 Jun 2017)

Short summary

The paper aims to propose a conceptual framework that supports nuanced understanding and analytical assessment of resilience in socio-hydrological contexts. We identify three framings of resilience for different human–water couplings, which have distinct application fields and are used for different water management challenges. To assess and improve socio-hydrological resilience in each type, we introduce a resilience canvas as a heuristic tool to design bespoke management strategies.