Response Diversity as a Sustainability Strategy

The authors argue that the most effective way to build general resilience in an increasingly volatile and uncertain world is to foster “response diversity… a system’s variety of responses to disruptions of all kinds.” That entails maintaining a variety of ways to carry out key system process (ideally at different spatial and temporal scales) that each have different vulnerabilities to disturbance. Response diversity involves trade-offs between the ideal use of resources in present conditions versus for unexpected changes, and in targeting some classes of potential shock over others. The authors conclude with seven general principles for building response diversity.