Integrated analysis of human-environment systems: Social-ecological resilience in Logone floodplain, Lake Chad Basin

Studying and managing social systems and ecosystems as coupled social-ecological systems (SES) has become prominent following failure of conventional natural resource management to meet the goal of sustainability. Sustainability requires that SES develop the ability to cope with, adapt to, and shape change in ways that do not compromise future options for adaptability. That ability is known as social-ecological resilience (SER); it entails adaptability and is a prerequisite to sustainability, two fundamental modern day natural resource management paradigms. The SES approach adopted in this study presents a more holistic framework for managing the complex adaptive nature of natural resource systems. In addition, SES analyses have been by and large focused on relatively large systems with little attention to finer temporal and spatial scales within which most resource managers function. Such focus, recognized as key to sustainable management of natural resource systems is adopted in this study. A synthesis of numerous qualitative analyses outlined core processes that create and maintain SER. These processes are social-ecological constructs with neither direct empirical operational methods of measurement nor precise methods of measuring their degree of presence and influence. A more functional view of system state and dynamics requires empirical operationalization of SER. This study specifies criteria and demonstrates how SER analysis is made empirically operational at the level of individuals, the smallest conceivable SES. Communities within Lake Chad Basin were used as case study. Key informants, focus groups and participant observations were used to improve pre-developed psychometric instruments. To appraise system processes, improved instruments were validated and administered to a purposefully random sample. Psychometric methods were used to retain highly internally consistent measures for each instrument. System indicator theory was applied to structural equation modeling to enable examination of the influence of processes on system resilience. I have therefore; introduce a novel basis for assessing the state of SESs that lends itself to comparable system analyses for which multiple autonomous subsystems are identifiable. Such efforts will enhance SES theory, help detect and track trends in system processes, guide policy interventions, and assess the progress or impact of such interventions.