Building resilience to climate-driven regime shifts

Abstract: There is increasing concern about potential climate-driven regime shifts– large abrupt shifts in social-ecological systems that could have large impacts onecosystems services and human well-being. This paper aims to synthesize the potentialpathways for building resilience to such regime shifts. Ten examples from the RegimeShift Database provided the cases for analysis. Causal loop diagrams were used toanalyze feedback mechanisms at different scales and identify “leverage points” –places to intervene in the system in order to build resilience. Sixteen of these leveragepoints were identified, most of which relate to agricultural management. Mostfeedback mechanisms include at least one leverage point highlighting the potential forbuilding resilience to climate-induced regime shifts. The most common leverage pointsidentified in our analyses were vegetation cover, algae volume and atmospherictemperature. These leverage points were compared to mitigation strategies discussedby the IPCC. This comparison indicates that current climate change mitigationstrategies do not alter most of the leverage points directly. This suggests that IPCCstrategies should be broadened in order to reduce the risk of regime shifts, and theassociated impacts on human well-being.