Crossing the Threshold: Be Careful about the Path You Choose— You May Not Be Able

to Return

Abstract
The essay is a percept of threshold within the framework of resilience in social -ecological
system. It emphasizes resilience thinking towards sustainability in terms of capacity to
manage a system in relation to thresholds.
The keywords in the essay are itemized and defined appriopately for easy understanding of
the context, while the learning objective are spelt out within the context of; threshold, system
behavior and regime shift. Generally, an approach from the meaning of resilience and
crossing threshold concept was the basis of the essay.
With a brief description of threshold model using the ball in the basin analogy, examples were
cited from the literature, while different variables and resilience thought were itemized. A
case study of coral reef capacity loss due to regime shift or crossing beyond threshold is
outlined for apprioate learning motive and understanding,
And finally, an excerpt on building resilience cities by comparing Haiti and Chile and general
outline on how to prevent disaster.

Introduction
The concept of resilience is anchored on sustainable thinking towards achieving sustainable
resource usage without consequences to us and generation next. Though it may not be the
panacea for our environmental problems.But, it encourages us to ask questions about the way
we manage our resources and ourselves.
Crossing threshold entails a system that changes and begins behaving in a different way,
which would result to regime shift, thereby altering the future of many systems upon which
we depend and undoubtedly limiting the future options of the people within the basin of the
shift. Unfortunately we are never aware of this changes until its behavior is significantly
changed and affecting our way of life.
The framework of resilience is based on metaphor of adaptive cycle and regime shift, a
summary model of ball in a basin analogy with appropriate understanding of its social –
ecological systems is described further.

Keywords concept
The essence of keyword concept is to help in focusing on various variables and the
technicality of the fundamental elements used in describing resilience thinking .this keywords
are taking from the literature and a brief definition is meant to create an understanding and the
conceptualization of what is and what will in terms of resilience thinking, resource
management and sustainable livelihood
Here are the major keywords outlined with their meaning:

Thresholds: are levels in controlling variables where feedbacks to the rest of the system
change –crossing points that have the potential to alter the future of many systems.
(According to Walker and Salt)

Resilience thinking: thinking that is significantly different from the ruling paradigm of
maximizing returns via controlled optimal states in resource management.

Regime shift: infrequent modification of system organization and dynamics with

consequences that could be for a long time and catastrophic
Social –ecological system: a system of people and nature

Ecological Resilience: capacity of a system to absorb a disturbance without fundamental

changes to its characteristic processes and feedbacks i.e it’s about how much disturbance and
change can a system take before it loses the ability to stay in the same basin

Engineering resilience: how quickly a system returns to equilibrium

Slow variable: Factors that change slowly in response long term processes .it determine the
resilience of ecosystem

Fast variables: Factors that change rapidly and that are easily measured

Learning objective:
The whole essay is centered on resilience thinking ,thereby creating characteristics that is
sustainably inclined in order to avoiding a shift in the social ecological status of natural
resources .therefore there is a need to put a clear outline of learning objective in order to
give direction and purpose of the discussion and what it entail. So the learning objective of
this essay is :Resilience thinking towards avoiding crossing threshold

Problem: the problem at stake here is simply the issue of crossing the threshold due to usage
of resources without considering that changes are bound to happen when the carrying capacity
is exceed .A whole new regime is created and an inevitable shift of social ecological status
takes place leading to loss of resources.

Using a system of ball in a basin analogy.

A system is described by the variables it consists, such as: poultry, feeds, water and people, it
is four dimensional .the dimensions are envisage based on number of variables. It is always
depicted as n-dimensional.
Describing the system further, the basin system; it has essentially same structure, function and
feedbacks kind, and the ball is always moving towards equilibrium but in reality it is not the
same outcome rather the equilibrium changes constantly due to external conditions which also
affects the basin shape and ball position i.e. the system is never in equilibrium. The question
at stake from resilience perspective is how change can occur in the basin and in the system’s
trajectory without the system leaving the basin
But beyond some limit, change takes place in the feedbacks that affects the system dynamics
and prompting a system with different structure and function in a new basin which tends
towards crossing a threshold and creating a new regime.

Source: http://www.resalliance.org/564.php
Threshold in the real world-an example
The Easter Island is an example of real world threshold and its prolonged social ecological
consequences including the regime shifts and its slow variables
The island was covered by a tropical forest, with 6 species of land birds and 37 species of
breeding seabirds. But due to domestic need of the inhabitant, trees were felled for firewood,
gardens, building canoes, and for rolling and levering the giant statues. But By 1600, forest,
land birds, and seabirds were gone. Therefore, I shall outline the basic and fundamental
problems that lead to regime shift thereby creating resources scarcity and making a immense
and tremendous workload on the community which eventually lead to a cumbersome life and
unsustainable livelihood. Here are the problems that I perceive in the literature

Problem: a) Forest decline resulting to high soil erosion, b) Scarcity of resources to meet their
basic need. c) Cannibalism and population collapse from 10000 estimates to 2000

The alternate regime as result of crossing threshold

When a threshold is crossed, there is bound to be a change that may not be reversible and that
was what happened in the given example; it resulted to an alternate regime which has a social
ecological status different from the initial baseline of the system. What leads to shift of
regime can be attributed to eroded landscape, forest loss, loss of grassland and extintion of
land and sea birds. A community inability to realize the capping of their activities on nature
and its resources, and not minding the carrying capacity may not be able to put up necessary
effort to manage resilience sustainably

Slow variables:
Having defined what slow variable, the nitrogen content of the soil is considered as element
of slow variable because the response was slow to the long term processes occurring in east
island forest usage. Elaborating it further, I deduce that the threshold was crossed because of
forest clearing which caused a direct feedback to plant growth as result of the nutrient been
too low for tree regeneration and thereby leading to a regime shift of the system

Finally, I shall end this essay part by given some key points in resilience and management
thinking. And since resilience thinking is about recovery of all by its system ability. The
following are substantive points to dwell on issues about resilience

Resilience thinking
The concept of resilience presents an approach to observing and managing natural resources
in a way that embraces the complexity of human and natural systems in order to determining
how systems can adapt and thrive in changing circumstances .In conclusion, below are the
substantive summary in creating a school of thought that will understand the very dimensions
of resilience thinking towards sustainable livelihood:

• It is the slow variable that determine the resilience of ecosystem although there are
many variables that affects the social-ecological system
• Each of these variables consist of threshold and if it system moves beyond a threshold
it behaves in a different way, often with undesirable and unforeseen surprises.
• If a threshold is crossed, it becomes difficult and sometimes impossible to return back
 • The distance of a system from its threshold determine its capacity to be pushed
beyond.i.e if it is close, then it can be pushed over easily

Before concluding, it will be of necessity to outline the management concept of resilience,

haven spell out the school of thought with regard to the prerequisite that define elaborately
what resilience thinking encompasses. Managing resilience from this perspective would
promote biological, landscape, social and economic diversity. The reason being that, diversity
is a major source of future options and of a system's capacity to respond to change, below is
the management highlight

• A strong understanding of sustainability is required because it aid in knowing where

threshold lies and if it exists
• An understanding of social-ecological system with particular attention to the drivers
that causes the system to cross threshold,
• Knowing the slow variables in the system
• Enhance the aspect of the system that enables it to maintain its resilience

In conclusion, haven considered the significance of resilience thinking, it is still not a panacea
for all of the world natural resource problems. But however, it provides a foundation for
achieving sustainable patterns of resource use. It is totally a new way of thinking different
from the old norms of cost and benefit of resources.

Case Study: Losing the Jewel in the Crown: The Coral Reefs of the Caribbean

Introduction
Coral reefs are critical component of the marine environment. The jewels of the Caribbean
crown, threading along thousands of kilometers of coastline. A biological rich habitat that
provide important ecosystem services and goods. Rich in purpose to the Caribbean people: it
provides food, protect the coastlines from tropical storm swells, and create sand for beaches
and a thriving tourism
Unfortunately ,the coral reefs are in severe decline and it is estimated that one-third of the
regions reef are largely due to pressure associated with overfishing, tourist development,
coastal development, disease, global warming, sewage discharge, agriculture runoff and
sedimentation.

Caribbean reef .Source: http://www.greenchange.org

Key findings from the literature
Majority of reefs in the Caribbean have lost their complex structure and become significantly
flat and more uniform. Reversing declines in reef architecture now poses a major challenge
for policy-makers and everyone concerned with maintaining reef ecosystems and the security
and well-being of Caribbean coastal communities. And, here are summary of the state of the
reefs according the literature
• The coral reefs of the Caribbean are in severe decline and most of the available
evidence suggests it is induced by human
• Research evidence shows that there’s been an 80 percent decline in cover of hard
corals compared with available data of 30years ago in which the area of reef covered
by hard coral was around 50 percent.
• Fifteen percent of reefs are threatened by discharge from wastewater from cruise
ships, tankers, and yachts, leaks or spills from oil infrastructure, and damage from ship
groundings and anchors.
• 20 percent of the coral reefs are at high threat from increased sediment and pollution
from agricultural lands and other land modification.
• Possible regime shifts in coral reefs as fishing pressure and nutrients increase

Historicity of Caribbean
Caribbean is a region surrounded by coasts. It comprises more than 7,000 islands, isles. reefs,
and cays, the essence of making available the detail outline of what it entails is simply to
understand Caribbean better through the lens of historicity. These are the major elements and
key points of what encompasses Caribbean.
• A vast watery domain that encompasses the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and
part of the northwestern Atlantic Ocean.
• It is an area of high cultural and political diversity shaped by a vivid history
• 36 percent of Caribbean coral reefs lie within 2 km of the coast
• Within this region lie twenty-four sovereign nations (fourteen of which are island
nations) and eleven territories of distant countries
• Coral reefs contribute significantly to nutrition and employment, particularly in rural
areas and among island communities.
• Tourism is the most important economic activity for many coastal localities.

Coral reefs and resilience

Disturbance is not new to coral reef because it predominantly exists in areas that constantly
experience disturbing events, and it has the capacity to reassemble itself after an event such
hurricane.
Over timeline period, the coral reefs have collapsed due to land modification and other human
pressure and as result the reefs are being dominated by fleshy seaweed instead of hard corals.
But today, the coral that remains is further affected by increasingly prevalent coral disease
and coral bleaching, and respond in divers ways to disturbance based on its response and
functional diversity capacity

Response diversity
The response to disturbance differs among organisms in the reef when it comes to resilience.
In distinguishing the roles species perform in term of resilient to disturbance; there are two
concepts of diversity which are functional and response.
Functional diversity: variety of functional groups of organisms that support distinct ecosystem
functions and doing different things.
Response diversity: variety of responses to disturbance within a functional group that
contribute to the same ecosystem function (i.e., redundancy). And it’s this aspect of diversity
that is critical to a system’s resilience and it is akin to risk insurance.

Redundancy
Functional groups performing same function but in different ways. Many functional groups
that the Caribbean coral reefs depend upon have only a few species in them therefore the
range of responses these functional groups can make to a disturbance is limited. And as result
if there is a loss of any of the functional groups, the capacity of the reef ecosystem to absorb
disturbance, regenerate, and retain critical functions is diminished
But when Redundancy increases an ecosystem’s response diversity, the resilience
performance is increased.

Social-Ecological Systems of coral reefs.

This deal with linkages between the social and ecological domains of the reef. It entails
involving the people or local in planning and supporting development program to restitute the
natural regeneration processes and functions of the reef.

Resilience and the Coral Reefs of the Caribbean.

The social-ecological system of the Caribbean coral reef is vulnerable to land modification
and other human induced activities such as overfishing due to low response diversity, few
species within functional groups thereby loosing it good functional groups and capacity to
regenerate after disturbance. All these factors are the determinant of resilience in the
Caribbean coral reefs.

Possible solution to rebuilding Caribbean coral reefs

The livelihoods of people in coastal areas around Caribbean are largely dependent on coral
reefs. And Reefs are important for the biodiversity they sustain and the services they provide
to this community of people. From the concept of resilience thinking we can begin to realise
that the ways of the people in this region places a enormous amount of stress that the reefs
simply cannot handle. The question that need to be asked and answered; is what possible
solution we can carry out to rebuild the coral reef in Caribbean. Below are some suggested
solutions to changing the architecture and status of reef to a stable system
• Restoration efforts focused on improving water quality and restoring depleted fish
stocks to enhance the innate resilience of coral reefs.
• Increase in the size and rate of establishment of “no take areas” where fishing and
other human activities are prohibited, to enable the stressed populations of critical
species of fish to regenerate
• Provision of adequate resources for managing the area of concern
• Local people should be involved in the conception and running of the area

Building Resilience Cities-Case of study of Haiti earthquake and Chile earthquake 2010
The country of Haiti makes up the western one-third of the island of Hispaniola in the
Caribbean. It is one of poorest and most densely populated and least developed countries in
the Western Hemisphere. An estimated population of about 9million.And according to united
nation report eighty percent of residents live in poverty.
A major earthquake struck Southern Haiti on Tuesday, 12 January 2010, inflicting a
catastrophe on the impoverished Caribbean nation. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti
at a depth of 8.1 miles. The epicenter was located 15 miles of Port-Au-Prince. They had had
59 aftershocks. And a number of these were rather strong aftershocks. The aftershocks ranged
from 4.2 to 5.9 magnitudes in strength. And an estimated three million people were affected;
the Haitian Government reported that an estimated 230,000 people had died, 300,000 had
been injured and 1,000,000 made homeless, and estimate of about 30,000 commercial and
250,000 resident building were severely damaged or collapsed.
Chile is one of South America’s most stable and prosperous nation’s .It has higher human
development, quality of life, political stability, globalization, economic freedom, and
comparatively low poverty rates compared to its counterpart. It is estimated population is
15million .An earthquake occurred off the coast of the Maule region of Chile on February 27,
2010, rating a magnitude of 8.8 and lasting 90 seconds. It was strongly felt in six Chilean
regions. Chilean officials said 500,000 houses were destroyed or badly damaged, while it
killed more than 700 people
A Comparison of the two cities indicates the following:
The earthquake in Chile was far stronger than the one that struck Haiti last month – yet the
death toll and infrastructure devastation in this Caribbean nation is magnitudes higher.
Though the earthquake was centered offshore an estimated 21miles (34kilometers)
underground in a relatively unpopulated area while Haiti's tectonic mayhem struck closer to
the surface – about 8 miles (13 kilometers) – and right on the edge of Port-au-Prince. The
major factor that contributed to less damage is simply preparedness, which is an element of
resilience thinking or building resilience cities in disaster zone

Chileans, have homes and offices built to ride out quakes, their designed system to sway with
seismic waves rather than resist them and enhanced with an improved urban planning,
infrastructure and building safety, drainage systems and early warning system

But many of the buildings in the Haiti that collapsed were poorly designed and built mostly
with concrete and often without steel reinforcement and foundations. And expansion of urban
area are not planned which resulted to overcrowding, inadequate infrastructure containing
scores of poorly-built homes.
The massive human losses are attributed to a lack of attention to earthquake-resistant design
and construction practices, and the poor quality of much of the construction.

Therefore we can rightly say that many of the deaths in Haiti's earthquake could have been
prevented by using earthquake-resistant designs and construction, as well as improved quality
control in work of affected buildings.

So policy structure that make available state and local building codes in preventing new
construction of vulnerable building styles will play a significant role in quality assurance.
There is also the need to replacing slums with homes that are safe, affordable, sustainable and
retrofitted to withstand earthquakes
In addition, there is a new twist of focusing on non-structural hazards that can be deadly in
big quakes, such as televisions, water heaters, and furniture that can become missiles in
violent quakes

Another major difference was the level of awareness and education with response to disaster
management. As a resilient city, the awareness level in terms of action and reaction played
significant role in stemming the devastation, and that is the reason, Chile as a country through
their preparedness approach was able to have significant absorbing ability of the quake.
Effective mainstreaming of risk reduction in governance and institution also made wall of
difference. Effects from aftershocks and impact was stabilised later because of this dimension
in Chile unlike Haiti that lacked institutional resilience .There was also a focus on community
program through proactive participation for most cities in Chile, thereby strengthening their
social resilience approach toward having a sustainable city

Chile shows that earthquake-resistant building codes don't mean that people will be able to
return to buildings, "just that they won't fall on them
In conclusion, from the case of Chile, building a resilience city require resilience based
development planning that incorporate the natural, institutional, economic, social and
physical dimension of a city

Source: Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World

Walker, Brian (Author) Salt, David (Author)
Pages: 192
Publisher: Island Press
Released: 2006