Project Director: Professor Alan A. Lew, Northern Arizona University, USA
Co-Director: Professor Pin T. Ng, Northern Arizona University, USA
Collaborator: Professor Tsung-Chiung (Emily) Wu, National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan
Collaborator: Professor Chin-Cheng (Nickel) Ni, National Hsin Chu University of Education, Taiwan

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Research Problem and Questions

While sustainable development remains the preferred paradigm for most land and community development actions taken by governments and enterprises today, for a variety of reasons (including politics and human nature) it is not achieving its theoretical potential. Resilience science and planning is an alternative conceptual and applied approach, theorized and promoted in recent years because its focus on adaptation (as opposed to sustainability’s emphasis on mitigation/ prevention) appears better suited to incidents of rapid and often unpredictable change. There is, however, considerable debate in the literature over the fundamental relationship between resilience and sustainability, with some seeing them as the same, while others argue that they are diametrically opposed in their assumptions and approach. Resolving conceptual issues in sustainable development and resilience planning results in community planning models that are better able to address contemporary challenges ranging from climate change and natural disasters, to economic and social change driven by neoliberal globalization policies.

Core Research Questions: Our research seeks to understand four questions:
Q1. Are sustainability and resilience approaches different from one another in theory and practice? 
Q2. Do sustainability and resilience approaches share commonalities in theory and practice?
Q3. Do geographic variables of site and situation affect the sustainability-resiliency relationship?

Primary Research Question: By unpacking the relationship through the three research questions above, we seek to address our primary research question: 
Q4. Can sustainability and resilience be reconciled in a single community management and development framework? 
If yes, how can this best be done in an effective manner? If no, what is the best alternative for societal guidance, informed by sustainability and resilience, to address the needs of our current period of significant social and environmental change?

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Related Research & Other Projects

1. The Taiwan Sustainability and Resilience Project is linked on the Resilience Connections Network.
2. Cheer, Joseph and Lew, A.A., editors. 2017. Tourism, Resilience and Sustainability: Adapting to Social, Political and Economic Change. London: Routledge. (forthcoming)
3. Lew, A.A. and Cheer, Joseph, editors. 2017. Tourism Resilience and Adaptation to Environmental Change. London: Routledge. (forthcoming)
4. ‘Path Dependence and Innovation in the Adaptive Resilience of Coastal Tourism Areas in Transitional China,’ Dr. Shanshan Dai and Dr. Honggang Xu, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China; External consultant: Dr. Alan A. Lew, Northern Arizona University. (China Natural Science Foundation Grant, September 2016 to December 2019.)
5. Wu, Tsung-chiung and Wall, Geoffrey. 2017. Learning from Dabang: Collaboration, Sustainability and Resilience in Indigenous Tourism Development. In Cheer and A.A. Lew, editors, Tourism, Resilience and Sustainability: Adapting to Social, Political and Economic Change. London: Routledge. (forthcoming)
   
6. Additional related projects will be posted here as they are confirmed.

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Timeline

Funded: Fall 2014 to Summer 2016

Additional funding provided by the Taiwan Fellowship program of the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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Written Products

1. Lew, A.A., Ng., P.T., Ni, C-C., and Wu, T-C. (2016). Community Sustainability and Resilience: Similarities, Differences and Indicators. Tourism Geographies 18(1):18-27. (pre-publication version)
2. Similarities and Differences between Community Resilience and Sustainability - Collaborative for Sustainable Tourism and Resilient Communities Blog, 27 October 2015.
3. Sustainability Driven and Resilience Driven Societal Development - Collaborative for Sustainable Tourism and Resilient Communities Blog, 27 June 2016.
4. Some New Resilience Figures and Diagrams - Collaborative for Sustainable Tourism and Resilient Communities Blog, 30 September 2016.
5. Lew, A.A.; Ni, C-C.; Wu, T-C; and Ng, P.T. 2017. The Sustainable and Resilient Community: A new paradigm for community development. In A.A. Lew & Joseph Cheer, eds., Understanding Tourism Resilience: Adapting to Environmental Change, pp. (forthcoming). London: Routledge.
6. Lew, A.A.; Wu, T-C; Ni, C-C; and Ng, P.T. 2017. Community Tourism Resilience: Some applications of the Scale, Change and Resilience (SCR) Model. In Richard Butler, ed., Tourism and Resilience, pp. (forthcoming). Oxfordshire: CABI.
7. Lew, A.A., and Wu, Tsung-chiung. 2017. Resilience and Ecosystem Services in Coastal Wetlands. In A.A. Lew & Joseph Cheer, eds., Understanding Tourism Resilience: Adapting to Environmental Change, pp. (forthcoming). London: Routledge.
8. Modeling the Resilience Adaptive Cycle (more resilience figures and diagrams) - Collaborative for Sustainable Tourism and Resilient Communities Blog, 21 January 2017.
   


9. Additional publications will be posted as they are confirmed.

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Presentations

1. Defining Resilience: New Ideas on Social System Resilience to Slow Change, presented at the School of Tourism Management, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai, China, 17 October 2016. (Alan A. Lew)
   
2. Understanding Innovative Resilience and Conservative Sustainability in Rural Community Development: Lessons from Taiwan, at the Conference on Developmental Studies - Environment and Sustainable Development, organized by the Association for Development Studies and the Department of Geography, National Taiwan University, Taipei: Taiwan, 15-16 October 2016. (Tsung-chiung Wu).
3. ​Sustainability and Resilience to Disturbance and Change in Rural Taiwan Communities. Northern Arizona University, Franke College of Business, Faculty Brown Bag Meeting on March 6, 2015. (Pin T. Ng)
4. ​The Four Faces of Community Resilience and Sustainability: Disaster & Non-Disaster Communities in Taiwan - Special Presentation at the 8th Tropical Tourism Outlook Conference, Lombok, Indonesia, 29-31 July 2015. (Alan A. Lew)
5. Temporal-Spatial Analysis on Vulnerability and Resilience In Community-Based Tourism Response to Change, at the 8th Tropical Tourism Outlook Conference, Lombok, Indonesia, 29-31 July 2015. (Chin-Cheng Ni)
6. Tourism, Community Resilience & Cultural Ecosystem Services in Taiwan’s Wetlands - 53rd Taoyaka Program Seminar, Hiroshima University, Japan, 21 October 2015.​ (Alan A. Lew)
7. Tourism, Community Resilience & Cultural Ecosystem Services in Coastal Wetland Conservation in Taiwan - Coastal & Marine Tourism Congress, Kona, Hawaii, 10-13 November 2015. (Alan A. Lew)
8. Resilience and Sustainability as Alternative Community Tourism Development Paths: Lessons from Taiwan.’ 112th annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers, San Francisco, California, 29 March - 2 April 2016. (Alan A. Lew)
9. Understanding Innovative Resilience and Conservative Sustainability in Community Tourism Development: Lessons from Taiwan. Keynote presentation at the 20th International Geographical Conference of Taiwan (IGCT), National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, 20-21 May 2016. (Alan A. Lew)
10. Rural Resilience and Sustainability Workshop, organized by Tsung-Chiung Wu and Chin-chien Ni (with Pin T Ng and Alan A. Lew), Shih Chien University, Taipei, Taiwan, 24 June 2016. Invited event with leading researcher in Taiwan.
11. Sustainability and Resilience to Disturbance and Change in Rural Taiwan Communities: Their Measurement and Indicators, College of Business, Shangdong University at Weihai, Weihai, Shandong, 7 July 2016. (Pin T. Ng)
12. Sustainability and Resilience to Disturbance and Change in Rural Taiwan Communities: Their Definitions and Lessons, College of Economics Management, Harbin Institute of Technology at Weihai, Weihai, Shandong, 12 July 2016. (Pin T. Ng)

• Additional presentations will be posted here as they are confirmed.

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