Resilience of Territorial Socioecological Systems: Methodology of Analysis and Assessments

Abstract

Abstract: The article develops a methodological approach to assessing the resilience of territorial socioecological systems (TSES). Despite the widespread use of the concept of resilience, its interpretation remains ambiguous and its quantitative assessment difficult. Resilience research is often fragmented across disciplines, which belies both the complexity of the challenges facing modern society, from economic problems to climate change, and the complexity of the TSES themselves (countries, regions, cities), in which the natural environment, economy, and human community are closely intertwined. The authors propose moving away from a narrow understanding of resilience as the ability to recover from (sector-specific) shocks towards a broader concept that describes the ability of systems to continuously function and develop under the pressure of various challenges. The article identifies five components of the TSES (natural environment, economy and labor market, population/human potential, governance and community, territorial structure) and six system properties (structural diversity, concentration, internal and external connectivity, dynamism, available resources), which are considered as universal parameters of resilience. The presented component-by-component categorization of the parameters allows for a comprehensive analysis of the state of TSES, their reactions and adaptive potential and refinement of the specific set of quantitative/qualitative indicators depending on the territory and the challenges it faces. The approach was tested through a case study of the challenges of demographic shrinkage in the city of Troitsk in Chelyabinsk Oblast, aridization and desertification in the republics of Kalmykia and Dagestan, and the 2024 flood in Orenburg Oblast.