Resilience

Resilience is the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance, adapt to changing conditions, and continue functioning or to return to a functional state after disruption. The term is used across disciplines such as psychology, ecology, engineering, and social sciences, and its precise meaning varies by context. Etymologically, resilience derives from the Latin resiliens, meaning to rebound or spring back.

Core ideas include the ability to withstand shocks, maintain essential structure, and reorganize in the face of change. Mechanisms that support resilience include diversity, redundancy, modularity, learning, and effective governance or leadership. In practice, resilience involves both resistance to perturbation and the capacity for adaptive response.

In psychology, resilience describes an individual's or a group's capacity to cope with adversity, recover emotional equilibrium, and continue pursuing goals. Protective factors include social support, adaptive coping strategies, and a sense of mastery. In ecology, resilience refers to the ability of ecosystems to absorb disturbances without shifting to an alternative state; it emphasizes thresholds, feedbacks, and adaptive cycles. In engineering and infrastructure, resilience often emphasizes quick recovery and maintaining critical functions after shocks, sometimes prioritizing recovery time and service continuity over returning to a pre-disturbance state.

Measurement of resilience varies by domain and may involve indicators such as speed of recovery, maintenance of functions, diversity of components, and adaptive capacity. Applications range from disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation to organizational risk management and community development.