Review article: Towards a context-driven research: a state-of-the-art review of resilience research on climate change

Ossewaarde, Ringo; Filatova, Tatiana; Georgiadou, Yola; Hartmann, Andreas; Özerol, Gül; Pfeffer, Karin; Stegmaier, Peter; Torenvlied, Rene; van der Voort, Mascha; Warmink, Jord; Borsje, Bas

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1119-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1119-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1119-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 3

Review article

|

26 Mar 2021

Review article |

| 26 Mar 2021

Review article: Towards a context-driven research: a state-of-the-art review of resilience research on climate change

Ringo Ossewaarde, Tatiana Filatova, Yola Georgiadou, Andreas Hartmann, Gül Özerol, Karin Pfeffer, Peter Stegmaier, Rene Torenvlied, Mascha van der Voort, Jord Warmink, and Bas Borsje

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Final revised paper (published on 26 Mar 2021)
Preprint (discussion started on 31 Mar 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'Review comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 10 May 2020
- AC1: 'reply to your review', Ringo Ossewaarde, 15 Jun 2020
RC2: 'Comments on the Review article: Towards a context-driven research: a state-of-the-art review of resilience research on climate change', Md. Shibly Sadik, 16 May 2020
- AC2: 'reply to your review', Ringo Ossewaarde, 15 Jun 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (15 Jun 2020) by Animesh Gain

AR by Ringo Ossewaarde on behalf of the Authors (26 Jul 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (10 Aug 2020) by Animesh Gain

RR by Md. Shibly Sadik (10 Aug 2020)

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (25 Sep 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

When I started reading the old version before changes were made, I thought that with a few changes here and there, more balance would be introduced by the authors and maybe, a little more structure and stressing out the novelties, and then it could be fine. However, after reading the revised sections, I am more worried than before about these points.

The paper omits also the many attempts (maybe not successful, but there are) to bridge this stereotype gap between "natural" and "social" sciences. There is quite some research on interdisciplinary, even transdisciplinary approaches. This stream is neither addressed much in the long review narrative of this paper, not is it captured in their own framework.
The other problem is the paper mostly works with unsupported claims such as in line 268 "Current research can broadly be classified into two main schools of thought, namely, naturalist and constructivist". Well, this rather cements and perpetuates stereotypes, rather than captures numerous other divisions that other review papers have tried to make a statement.

One main worry may be due to the question of writing style. It is common, yet I keep it with old scientific styles of Occam and others not to attack ad hominem, and similarly, not to take claims of some scientists to represent the scientist in general. For example, line 408: "Constructivist social scientists thus think"

Another general worry is that the text is long and descriptive, and mainly narrates what other articles already have found out. That is, the paper also mentions critique the critical articles have revealed. But there is few novelty by this paper in, such as when the paper would have scrutinized this critique, or had tried to balance it with counter-arguments or provide other new insights to it. As it is, the paper still deserves being published since it is always good to have another compilation of studies. But maybe the revision could look a bit more into this, too.

The article catches quite a substantial body of literature, but misses another. It is quite unclear, what fields they cover and how literature review methodology was conducted, guided and documented, too.

Provide two sources to line 210: "Holling’s socio-ecological systems the (SES) approach appealed to social scientists"

I suggest rewording such one-sided claims and especially avoid generalisations such as in lines 214-215: "for the social scientist,"
Even, when the four selected sources indeed state such a worldview. Since how can you claim that all social scientists perceive it so (and only so)?

Add sources to this claim, too: line 237 "scientists point out,"

Over and over there are repeatedly such claims without sources or that could be counter-argued. Lines 241-242: resilience to climate change has been addressed primarily 241 as a policy discourse.
Since this is the case in the rewritten parts of the paper, I can only suggest another major revision, I am sorry.
The main worry is that this paper while addressing a correct observation of typical characteristics of social constructivist versus naturalist conceptions, the paper mainly helps to cement such stereotyping, black and white comparisons that already have been published numerously in the 2000s and beyond.

In line 307 you may be interested in earlier origins, as Indirli 2019 reviews them: historical flight and some open questions towards a pluralistic but holistic view of resilience

Lines 455: "Naturalist social studies are based on the cybernetic idea"
Which are those "Naturalist social studies"? How did you methodologically assess it?
And how do you know which variants exist? Why should they only follow a cybernetic approach??

Passages such as lines 758-762 are fine in general diction, but it is again not supported by sources, and the sources and claims in the sources following do not directly support this.

Check wording in line 769, "into adaptive resilience tens to leave"

Lines 849ff: How did you decide and justify to select smart urbanism and AI among many technological trends?
Why is the whole section than not about "smart urbanism" at all?

Provide sources for your claims in lines 851-852.
And again; "all" have drafted their AI strategies so? A 190 countries you have checked?

The presentation of AI is one-sided and misses all the critique from natural sciences on the failures of AI, the software crisis in the 1980s related to it already, etc.
Again, this is rather an iteration of black and white stereotyping, missing structure, counterarguments and balance.

Claims such as in lines 859-860 are again, worrisome; why should "Strengthening adaptive resilience to climate change through AI primarily" really only have resulted in
"means that an integrated data system for circulating information (near) real time among agents needs to be developed" AI can do much more than just "circulating information"?!

That AI section still does not fit into the article. Maybe consider keeping it for a future article? Or embed it with more argumentation, as I tried to indicate.

Lines 994 following. The first sentence seems to be contradicted by the following sentence. And it would be good to see literature cited here that actually already tried to provide such mediation.

In section 4 it is a bit difficult to understand and find the six themes exactly. The beginning s of the sentences to each new theme could be made simpler to understand what are the main aspects of it. An example is in line 1016; it comes with.... but what do you mean?
The whole section is rather long and once more, descriptive, narrative, with claims mixed with source-based review. The whole article is too much of the same in style. In 4, shorter would be better. Also, at least the first three themes, but actually, all of them simply repeat the previous sections.

What is this dangling text from lines 1220 onwards?
Content-wise it is really interesting and a bit novel and would warrant a paper. But as it is it is unclear what this part of text does.

Line 1252 please avoid such jargon as "good old notion"

Only towards the end, the article comes back to climate change. Given the job background of most authors, it seems that this is the real intention, stated in line 1281 "are all connected to the issue of the political-administrative response"
Maybe, the paper could be rewritten from the perspective of such governance; how it deals with resilience and these six fields? Or at least, be more explicit on why administrations increasingly become interested in such questions? This would be of benefit to scientific discussion. But it is also ok I think, if you keep it and only make it more balanced and avoid one-sided claims.

Towards the end of the conclusion, the article meanders into speculations about giant tech companies. It is alright to use a conclusion to expand the horizon of the article, but here as at other parts, it sounds a bit much like a journalistic speculative style.

In the rebuttal letter, the authors indicate to uptake some of the suggestions. I am not sure they have met the expectations of the first reviewers. One recommendation I would like to reiterate and this time request the authors to deliver it (maybe I just did not find them): the text could well be cut on many text parts and benefit greatly from tables and maybe, framework charts that summarise the findings, find criteria for them and therefore, provide something novel to readers.

One final request; I know I generate a lot more work for you, my apologies. I generally like the overview this paper provides, it is helpful as a guidance for readers unfamiliar with the discussions. But especially for them, it is of great importance not to be guided in an unbalanced way.

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (10 Oct 2020) by Animesh Gain

AR by Ringo Ossewaarde on behalf of the Authors (16 Nov 2020) Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (30 Nov 2020) by Animesh Gain

RR by Sate Ahmad (15 Jan 2021)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Reviewer Report
The authors have done a remarkable job at addressing previous reviewer comments and concerns and incorporating their suggestions. Only a few minor edits, as indicated below, are required before I would recommend the article to be accepted.
-----------------------------
L21: system thinking -> systems thinking
L69: has started to gain? "has" would refer to something that has started recently - but the authors refer to the beginning of the new century. I would recommend deleting "has".
L78: It may be interesting for the authors to note a current discussion surrounding the terminology "natural disaster" vs simply "disaster" (see Kelman, 2020).
Kelman, I. (2020). Disaster by Choice: How our actions turn natural hazards into catastrophes. Oxford University Press.
L112: drought -> droughts
L169: I would request the authors to remove the example tsunami - as an example of the effects of climate change - unless they can somehow clarify that tsunamis are not an effect of climate change, rather the impacts of the tsunami are likely to worsen because of the effect of climate change on sea-levels. Also, for the other disasters, the authors should be consistent in their use of plural forms - hurricanes, ... , droughts
L172: had arisen
L175: causation” (Andler, 2014, p. 286)) -> causation” [Andler, 2014, p. 286])
L176-177: "Most social constructivists do not believe that reality is objective in the naturalist sense (strictly defined) and can thus be fully grasped" -> A bit confusing in my opinion. Do the authors mean to say that because reality is considered to be subjective by most social constructivists - reality cannot be fully grasped? If so then, then the authors need to change the sentence to -> ...and thus cannot be fully grasped.
L185: the(un)equal -> the (un)equal
L233: "interacting" / Interact has been used two times in the same sentence. Kindly remove one instance of it -> "... diverse interacting agents that make decisions, interact and learn..." OR "... diverse interacting agents that make decisions, interact and learn ...."
L240: micro-macro scale-> micro and macro scale
L250: intervention -> interventions
L261: Avoid back-to-back brackets/parenthesis: "... system property) (cf. Andler, 2014)" -> "... system property; cf. Andler, 2014)"
L276: governments" -> governments'
L295: do the authors mean to stay rising sea levels? Please change accordingly.
L301: very concept resilience -> very concept of resilience
L305: a unifying paradigm
L307: Resilience to climate change research -> I would say that the following sounds less confusing: Climate change resilience research ...
L325: When the authors state "between social scientists" - the question arises - between social scientists and whom? However, if they mean that there is disagreement within the social science community - then I would ask the authors to replace "between" with "among".
L340: (growth, accumulation, restructuring, and renewal) (Folke, 2006) -> (growth, accumulation, restructuring, and renewal; Folke, 2006)
L364: As the Meuse flows through several countries, it is not clear which government the authors are referring to. The authors should try to modify the text in a way that it can easily be grasped by an international audience.
L368: a research -> research
L370: "at the level of land-use" -> does not sound appropriate. Do the authors mean "in terms of land-use" / "with respect to land-use".
L371: The authors may want to be clearer about the location/ geographical context of the research finding. Also "found out that" -> "found that"
L381: Do the authors mean anthropogenic shocks?
L390: It is quite a statement to make that structural power is not measurable (arguable/debatable at the least). See:
Brams, S. J. (1968). Measuring the concentration of power in political systems. The American Political Science Review, 62(2), 461-475.
Mayhew Jr, B. H., Gray, L. N., & Richardson, J. T. (1969). Behavioral measurement of operating power structures: Characterizations of asymmetrical interaction. Sociometry, 474-489.
Upon having a fast look at two of the cited references - Lockie (2016) and Howell (2015) -, I have not understood where they state that structural power cannot be measured (I may be mistaking). I would request the authors to double-check such citations and to be careful that the references are cited in the correct places.
L398: "long term sustainability" -> long-term sustainability
L399: <space> after positions
L426-29: any pollutant that causes global warming is a greenhouse gas. Therefore I would suggest changing the sentence from: "...degradation, water pollution, as well as greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants that have been causing global warming (Cook et al., 2016)." to ""...degradation, air and water pollution, as well as greenhouse gas emissions that have been causing global warming (Cook et al., 2016)."
L442: green technological? do the authors mean green technologies or green technological innovation
L462: They propose that the creation
L468: Is "upcoming" in "upcoming themes" the appropriate word to use? Or is a better terminology would be "evolving themes", "emerging themes", "recurring themes". By the very definition of the word - "upcoming" means something that is about to happen / forthcoming. These research themes have already appeared in the literature, and hence I feel the choice of the word is not appropriate.
L482: Continuing attention -> continued attention OR continuous attention
L488: inter-, multi- and transdisciplinarity
L489: It does entails
L496: Wilson’s; consilience should be within quotes
L516: system thinking -> systems thinking
L519: alternatives imagined by human imagination. -> alternatives through human imagination.
L528-531: The use of quotation marks look a bit messy here. Please use single quotes within double quotes.
consists in the
L534: consists in -> consists of
L534-35: "...contextualization of resilience research and discourse, that is, in embedding it in its political and cultural context" => as there are two different aspects the authors are referring two - research ad discourse - shouldnt it be "embedding them in their political and..."
L538 a change/changes; systems thinking
L539-41: The sentence is confusing: Does this make more sense: For instance, on the one hand, environmental protest movements are include stakeholders who develop a leverage required to transform established systems (such as energy systems) and their governance arrangements.
L542: hold power, thanks to such arrangements, typically
L551: ensures
L557: tipping point for igniting transformation: There may be a more appropriate way to express this - as tipping points refer to a "situation, process or system beyond which a signiicant and unstoppable effect or change takes place" - and hence is more in line with describing an undesirable situation. Consider revising the phrase, perhaps, "and the threshold that needs to be surpassed for adaptation to to be considered as transformational."
L571: "conflict organized around scarce resources"? conflicts can happen without being intentionally organized. I would request the authors to consider using a different word, perhaps conflict surrounding / related to ,,,
L572: closing -> shutting down
L573: " becomes a more urgent research topic" -> become more urgent research topics
L575... "In other words, what are the implications of the disintegration of old systems for societies, that is, for their cultures, collective identities, traditions, economies, political-administrative power constellations, class structures, etc.?; and which societal transformations promote such disintegration?. In other words, what are the implications of the disintegration"->
"What are the implications of the disintegration of old systems for societies, that is, for their cultures, collective identities, traditions, economies, political-administrative power constellations, class structures, etc.? Which societal transformations promote such disintegration?
L605: (unhabitat.org, 2019) -> please check if this is the correct way of citing internet sources for this journal.
L608: whom? What... { for all other instances please remove the semi-colons and start a new question.
L610-12: excluded -> are being excluded , comma after 'process' , involve -> involves
L621: A long debate has been going on for the past 2 decades about terminologies such as climate-induced migration, and the like, because of the oversimplification of complex phenomena, and problems with solely attributing an event of movement to climate change impacts. That is not to say that people do not move in response to environmental and/or impacts of climate change. However, at least the authors should consider using the term "mobilities" instead of migration, to include more than just discrete events of migration.
See the comment by:
Boas, I., Farbotko, C., Adams, H., Sterly, H., Bush, S., van der Geest, K., ... & Hulme, M. (2019). Climate migration myths. Nature Climate Change, 9(12), 901-903.
L621: semi-colon after the question mark should be deleted.
626: Very interesting point made here. However, do the authors actually mean ethnic relations rather than "racial relations".?
640: some decades ago
649-650: the challenges of climate change-> the challenges of addressing climate change impacts
L653: systems thinking
L658: destroying -> eliminating
L661: consists in -> consists of
L663: The interaction between as well as the blurry line
In the conclusion, a final conclusive sentence is missing. I would suggest that the authors include one final sentence at the end of the conclusion.

Referee Report: PDF

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RR by Md. Shibly Sadik (03 Feb 2021)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (03 Feb 2021) by Animesh Gain

AR by Ringo Ossewaarde on behalf of the Authors (08 Feb 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (25 Feb 2021) by Animesh Gain

AR by Ringo Ossewaarde on behalf of the Authors (26 Feb 2021) Manuscript

Short summary

The aim of this paper is to review and structure current developments in resilience research in the field of climate change studies, in terms of the approaches, definitions, models, and commitments that are typical for naturalist and constructivist research and propose a research agenda of topics distilled from current developments in resilience research.