3.1 Emergent properties (vulnerability and resilience focus)

'Emergent properties' of a system are attributes of the system that arise from its interactions, and are more than the sum of properties of the individual parts. This chapter addresses a cluster of emergent properties of coupled human-environment systems that are particularly relevant to sustainability: vulnerability and resilience. Also touched on are the place of adaptiveness, threshold effects, and irreversibilities in the vulnerability / resilience perspective. Lacking in this draft, but probably needed in the final version, is a treatment of the emergent properties that are highlighted by viewing coupled human environment systems as complex adaptive systems (CAS). I hope that some of those CAS extensions will emerge in the discussions of this chapter. (Bill Clark)

3_1_Emergent Props_vS1.pdf — PDF document, 524Kb