- The Adaptive Cycle
- Understanding the Complexity of Economic, Ecological, and Social Systems
- Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems
- Assessing Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems: Workbook for Practitioners
The model above is the simplest version of the Adaptive Cycle I could find. There are a lot of more complex diagrams that are useful once you know how the basic model works. Think of how a forest comes back after a fire removes the previous forest. The recovery has 4 phases:
- Fast Reorganization (Pioneer Exploration by First Weeds)
- Fast Exploitation (Entrepreneurial Expansion by Most Successful Weeds)
- Slow Conservation (Organizational Ecosystem Development by the Developing Forest)
- Slow Degradation Followed by Fast Release (Collapse due to Increasing Brittleness over time)
This final phase of collapse creates the circumstances of a new cycle.
These cycles are not entirely predictable. But the larger phases can be recognized if not foretold by simple observation. (At least if you are looking for them.)
