CHAPTER THIRTEEN Disease Effects on Landscape and Regional Systems: A Resilience Framework

In this chapter we present and evaluate a conceptual framework intended to improve predictability of the role of disease in landscape processes of socioecological systems. On a local scale, disease tends to increase the interactions among patches on a landscape, particularly through changes in the frequency and severity of disturbances and increases in the vulnerability of ecosystems to fundamental changes in state in response to such disturbances. In addition, human activities that alter landscape structure or connectivity often increase the likelihood of disease epidemics or landscape sensitivity to disease. In contrast, on global and regional scales, disease tends to reduce landscape connectivity because the social response to these ecological changes is often to restrict trade and migration. Both the increase in connectivity on the local scale and the decrease in connectivity on regional to global scales can profoundly affect ecosystem structure and functioning. Resilience theory addresses the factors that make systems either resilient or vulnerable to radical changes in state by considering interactions between the ecological and social components of systems. This provides a framework for predicting the regional impacts of disease and reducing their social consequences. Resilience is facilitated by fostering cultural and ecological legacies that provide seeds for recovery; by maintaining biological, social, institutional, and economic diversity, which increases the options for alternative pathways of recovery; and by fostering learning and innovation, which reduces the potential impacts of disease and increases the likelihood of favorable social change.