What is the "California Resilience System"?

The California Resilience System (CalRS) is a society-wide initiative in the state of California, and a subset of the US Resilience System. The goal of CalRs is focused upon the health, well-being, and prosperity of Californians and their communities by fostering a resilient response to change. Based upon an open source platform that enable collaboration at all levels of society, from one end of the state to the other, the CalRS utilizes a multi sector approach enabling citizens, business and government to collaborate in identifying risks, preparing for unexpected events, reducing vulnerability, and responding to change events with a collective effort to improve circumstances. Focus is upon creative options to adapt to adversity (also called "adaptive capacity building"), information sharing, networking, actions and activity, for a flexible response to create and maintain properous economic and social systems embedded in healthy ecological systems upon whose services we depend upon for our health, wealth, and security.  

Why is the California Resilience System Important?

Complex System
Society, -- under the conditions of the 21st Century -- is subject to massive and costly systems challenges and discontinuities in our housing, health care, defense, energy, financial and economic systems. The California Resilience System is designed as an arena for collaboration, allowing for learning and flexibility to build adaptive capacity through all levels of society. Localized Resilience Networks access local situational awareness and management of localized social-ecological systems, while working hand in hand with all levels of California government, as well as Federal government when applicable. Weaving local and national business in with an awareness that humans and nature are entwined and essential components for stimulating development that enhances resilience, a focus of the CalRS and the componet city and community networks, is to creatively, economically, and effectively, meet the challenges of change.

Enables Agile and Adaptable Response
Rather than attempting to deny or control change, the California Resilience System applies a breakthrough in management and governance systems, called “Agility, Focus and Convergence (FAC).” FAC teams, supplement or potentially replace, many hierarchical, control systems and offer a more economically efficient complex adaptive system, that is able to self-synchronizing to emerging conditions. These non-hierarchical, non-controlled systems operate with the qualities of distributed collective learning, and decision-making for agile response, similar to market economies and the internet.

Reducing Vulnerability With Finite National Resources
The more localized Resilience Networks build upon the inherent resources, skillsets, and capacities in a community, to minimize the need for interventions from external resources. Currently, the predominate State and U.S. disaster response and disaster management systems operate through costly hierarchical controlled systems. The limitations of these systems to quickly, economically, and efficiently respond to the wide variety of localized needs, has been revealed by the complexity and extent of large scale disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, Haiti-like earthquakes, and the response during the Gulf Oil Spill. California is a state of high risk to earthquakes and fire, drought and flooding, economic insecurity, and climate change variability. Despite the reality of budget constraints, after-action reports call for increased resources, and appeals to remember and honor our commitment to the people and future of an area. However, over and over, it is also revealed that disasters bring communities together like never before... often with no pre-planning or disaster response understanding available. Through the Resilience System components, communities, neighborhoods and individuals are collaborate and share information to identify and actively participate in risk reduction, disaster response, and resilience building to meet the long-term problems of California, and the more localized regions.

Components of the California Resilience System

 
1) Resilience Networks

Resilience Networks provide a collaboration and information environment for all levels of local, regional society. The networking approach enables citizens, small business and local government to work in partnership towards a resilient response to the impact and process of change. Identification of resources and adaptive capacities of individuals, neighborhoods, communities and regions are recognized, and built upon. Resilience Networks enable healthy communities capable of responding to adversity by actively preparing for change events, such as economic, social, and environmental changes. This includes changes brought up by natural disaster events. In times of aggressive, sometime unanticipated change, a resilient community will need to draw upon all resources that contribute to its' health and well being. The Resilience System enhances the social capital of a community through encouraging informed and active networks focused upon informed communications, idea sharing, and access to a wide scope of resources before, during and after a crisis. These networks  enembrace the dynamic aspects of social-ecological dependencies, while looking for innovative and appropriate solutions for a resilient response to challenges and change at the local level. The Resilience Networks  proposes enhancing the level of community capacity to respond to, and recover from a disaster through multiple pathways, including:

Localized Resilience Networks actively engage individuals in risk / resilience assessment and asset mapping -  from the house-hold level, to the neighborhood level, and out to the greater community to develop community resilience plans with understanding of the local and regional related ecosystem services. From the identified risks and assets, individuals, neighborhoods, community groups, and whole communities are brought together with business, and government to actively build upon the tools of local area resilience. These may include the Resilience System and Networks platforms, geo spatial visualizations of local concerns, scenarios with direct application to the region, mobile social networking technology, as well as recognition of the power of face to face community meetings, active work parties and social events.

With-in a Resilience Network, govenment or management focus becomes one of building and supporting resilience by nurturing and/or conserving the many elements that are necessary to adapt to new, unexpected and transformative situations so that prosperous development may be created and maintained with-in the complexity of social and economic systems dependent upon the ecosystem services of local, regional, national and global biotic systems.
   
2) Trust Networks

 Trust Networks are intelligent social networks of individuals and groups with conflict resolution tools and methodologies, and cross-cultural knowledge and other characteristics that make them uniquely prepared to identify the underlying precursors and emerging indicators of social crises, conflict and violence.

3) FAC Teams

 Focus Agility and Command Teams are rapidly enabled teams comprised of pre vetted individuals with expertise, who active through Hastily Formed Networks to meet the immediate, health, communications and infrastructure, ecosystem, and humanitarian needs of an area. Members of FAC Teams may all ready be working or living in the impacted area, or come from far or near. Typically they will respond quickly in alignment with, but before large organized state or federal response.

4) ALADIN

 Adaptive Logistics And Distributed Intelligent Networks (ALADIN) are a new generation of environmentally-friendly logistics and distribution systems (like STAR-TIDES originating from advancements in the DoD) to address non-commercial demand for health- and life-sustaining products, shelters and services in distressed populations, generally in response to large scale disasters. Where formal hierarchical supply chains bog down and fail to rapidly meet essential requirements  - often crucial to maintaining the basics of survival for impacted tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people in a disaster area -  ALADIN is designed to function with agility, speed and financial transparency.

Key Concepts

Resilience Approach - Identifies and builds upon the inherent resources and adaptive capactity of a community or region - rather than depending upon broad and sweeping, external interventions - to overcome challenges and problems and adaptively respond to change, even transform, when it is not possible to return to the pre-existing state.  Fundamental to the Resilience System and Networks is the understanding that social-ecologiical systems are interdependent and constantly changing. Usually we respond to gradual change smoothly. However, sometimes there are drastic and abrupt shifts that are expensive, or impossible, to reverse. For a resilient response to such change, the area impacted by must contain the components needed for renewal and reorganization prior to the change event. In other words, social and ecosystems impacted by change must be able to cope, adapt or reorganize for a resilient response to change.

Useful tools for building resilience in social-ecological systems are: risk and threat identifications at the local level, and participation in structured scenarios to envision possible alternative futures and solutions to challenges presented. The work of building and sustaining resilience in our nation, must involve the building blocks of our nation: citizens, family and neighborhoods. Business and govenment must engage with citizens at he most granular level, with flexible, innovative and open collaboration.

Elemental to governance and business with-in the Resilience Networks is the recognition human society relies on ecosystem services. We must manage our environmental assets locally, regionally, nationally and globally, in order to support and maintain our options for prosperity into the future.

Risks & Threats - Identified events or situations which have in the past, or may in the future result in mortality or changes in health, and/or destruction to property, infrastructure and systems.

Vulnerabilities - The sensitivity and degree of exposure of an individual, family, neighborhood, community or region. These are generally considered the components which may weaken a community's ability for a resilient response to change. Vulnerability can be viewed in terms of a natural hazard where frequency, intensity, timing and magnitude are factors of impact. Vulnerability can also be a related to states of being such as those related to socio-economic factors including poverty, housing quality, access to services, community connections. Vulnerability can be related to health and wellness of the individuals, communities and ecosystems.

Adaptive Capacity - The ability of a community (or system) to modify or change its characteristics or behaviors to cope with an actual, or anticipated, change event. Adaptation is generally thought of as a response to a stressor.

Mitigation - Steps taken to pre-empt or avoid a risk or threat.

Community - In speak of resilient response to change, community can be divided into:

Community of Place - defined as entities in a geographic region such as a neighborhood, a town, or county.

 Community of Interest - defined as those who come together due to having a common interest or belief such as a those who play soccer, family and students of a school, those who work for a corporation, those who use the resources of the same lake, or members of a church/spiritual grouping
 

Community of Emergence - those who might come together over a particular event or issue such as environmental or social needs.