About Resilience
This page defines resilience as a system’s ability to maintain key functions under stress through resistance and recovery, and explains how coral reef resilience focuses on building those capacities. It describes reducing or eliminating stressors to improve reefs’ ability to recover from events like bleaching.
- Resilience comprises resistance (ability to absorb or resist impacts) and recovery (ability to recover from impacts).
- Coral reef resilience involves building both resistance and recovery potential in reef ecosystems.
- Reducing or eliminating stressors such as overfishing, pollution, and coastal development helps reefs bounce back after stressful events like bleaching.
Resilience is defined as the ability of a system to maintain key functions and processes in the face of stresses or pressures by either resisting or adapting to change. Resilience consists of two components: resistance, which is the ability to absorb or resist impacts, and recovery, the ability to recover from them. Coral reef resilience refers to building resistance and recovery potential into reef ecosystems by reducing or eliminating stressors (e.g., overfishing, pollution, coastal development). The term “reef resilience” refers to coral reefs that are able to bounce back or recover after experiencing a stressful event such as bleaching caused by elevated temperatures.
