Economic Resilience, Demography and Local Systems: A Commentary on Theory and Assessment

Despite the growing relevance of the 'resilience' dimension, this concept has not been yet carefully defined or satisfactory measured within the more general issue of socio-ecological resilience. Resilience is the capacity of a local system to tolerate disturbance without collapsing into a state controlled by different conditions and processes. Investigating socioeconomic resilience in systems changing rapidly over time is important for sustainable land management under intense and increasing human pressure. This article presents an overview of definitions and approaches for objective quantification of the socioeconomic resilience and an empirical exercise applied to multivariate time series data to assess the specific contribution of demography in socioeconomic resilience. The study is intended to contribute to the resilience issue in the light of the (increasingly complex) relationship between environment, economic systems and the social sphere.