International Open Workshop:
Socio-Environmental Dynamics over the Last 15,000 Years: The Creation of Landscapes VI
March 11-16, 2019 in Kiel, Germany
http://www.workshop-gshdl.uni-kiel.de/
Call for papers
Session 11 :
Social resilience to climate changes with perspectives on the past 5000 years
Session conveners:
Liang Emlyn Yang, Mara Weinelt, Joana Seguin, Ingmar Unkel, Jutta Kneisel, Artur Ribeiro
During the past few decades, many studies have highlighted periods when significant climatic changes coincided with social upheavals. However, fewer studies have discussed periods of social stability or prosperity when faced with climate risks. The concept of social resilience has gradually become an important topic in scientific communities (e.g. Climatology, Geography, Socio-ecology, Geo-archaeology, Sustainability). It refers to the capability of a human social system to cope with stresses, maintain its function and evolve into a more sustainable society with respect to climate stresses. In fact, increasing studies are suggesting that societies continued to settle and develop in hazard-prone areas and periods.
The overall aim of this session is to understand different cases, manifestations, and changes of social resilience to climate impacts from pre-historic, historical and contemporary perspectives, from local to global perspectives, and from theoretical, empirical as well as quantitative modelling perspectives. Specifically, the session will discuss the following questions (but not limited to):

  • What are typical cases of social resilience to climate changes in past societies?
  • What are the key factors and features for a social system to be resilient in face of climate variation?
  • How was resilience performed in key societal sectors, e.g. agriculture, nomadism, livelihood, urbanization or population development?
  • How can social resilience to climate changes be quantified, evaluated, modeled or simulated?
  • What kind of changes and evolution of social resilience to climate changes could be observed?
  • What are the scope, thresholds, and tipping points of social resilience to climate changes?
  • What can we learn from the experience and lessons of the past resilient and/or “un-resilient” cases? Are these learnings up-scalable to explanatory theories?
  • What could be the pathways, measures, strategies and priorities for building social resilience in present societies?

We aim to reach a big session of around 20 presentations and propose to publish a Special Issue of 12-15 full papers in a scientific journal that captures the variety of subjects and approaches discussed in this session. Upon specific requests, we may consider partly covering the participating costs of those who submit qualified full papers.
The abstract submission deadline is November 30, 2018. Please go to the conference website http://www.workshop-gshdl.uni-kiel.de to register and submit, and also inform the conveners about your intention of full paper submission. First version of full papers is due a week before the conference, i.e. by March 04, 2019. A target journal and other issues are to be discussed with all participants during the workshop.