The concepts of resistance, recovery, and resilience are in diverse fields from behavioral psychology to planetary ecology. These “three Rs” describe some of the most important properties allowing complex systems to survive in dynamic environments. However, in many fields—including ecology—our ability to predict resistance, recovery and resilience remains limited. Here, we propose new disturbance terminology and describe a unifying definition of resistance, recovery, and resilience. We distinguish functional disturbances that affect short-term ecosystem processes from structural disturbances that alter the state factors of ecosystem development. We define resilience as the combination of resistance and recovery—i.e., the ability of a system to maintain its state by withstanding disturbance or rapidly recovering from it. In the Anthropocene, humans have become dominant drivers of many ecosystem processes and nearly all the state factors influencing ecosystem development. Consequently, the resilience of an individual ecological parameter is not an inherent attribute but a function of linkages with other biological, chemical, physical, and especially social parameters. Because every ecosystem experiences multiple, overlapping disturbances, a multidimensional resilience approach is needed that considers both ecosystem structure (configuration of linkages) and disturbance regime. We explore these concepts with a few case studies and recommend analytical tools and community-based approaches to strengthen ecosystem resilience. Disregarding cultural and social dimensions of disturbance regimes and ecosystem structures leads to undesirable outcomes, particularly in our current context of intensifying socioecological crises. Consequently, cultivating reciprocal relationships with natural disturbance regimes and ecosystem structures is crucial to Earth stewardship in the Anthropocene.

This article provides a commentary about the state of integrated, coordinated, open, and networked (ICON) principles in Earth and Planetary Science Processes (EPSP) and discussion on the opportunities and challenges of adopting them. This commentary focuses on the challenges with current inclusive, equitable, and accessible science and highlights how research undertaken in the earth and planetary surface processes community currently benefit from and would be able to grow as a discipline with more directed implementation of ICON principles.

Climate change is forcing the ski industry to modify snow-making strategies and facility operations. Over-summer snow storage is an adaptation successfully employed by high-elevation and/or high-latitude ski centers in Europe, Canada, and Asia. The process involves stockpiling winter snow and storing it beneath insulation (e.g., wood chips) through summer. Current methods are empirically-based with few studies quantifying snowmelt through summer or comparing insulation strategies. In this project, we evaluate the feasibility of over-summer snow storage in Vermont, northeastern North America. Soil temperatures were recorded since June 2017 with sensors 5, 20, 50 cm and 1 m below the ground surface. In March 2018, two, 200 m3 snow piles were covered in plastic and wood chips; we monitored their volume bi-weekly through the melt season using terrestrial LiDAR. We also measured air to snow temperature gradients under various insulation materials: rigid foam, open cell foam, and wet wood chips, all with and without reflective coverings. Away from snow piles, ground temperatures at 1 m depth were ~7C in spring 2017, rising to 12C in summer, and falling to just above 0C in winter. As depth decreased, ground temperature became more responsive to air temperature; ground temperature lagged air temperature at all depths. Below summer snow piles, soil temperature at all depths remained near freezing through the summer as cold meltwater percolated into the ground. Snow was lost from each pile at a similar rate (~1.3 m3 day-1) from late March to mid-June; melt then accelerated slightly in response to increased air temperature, solar radiation, and humidity. Large crevasses formed in both piles along the edge of the plastic sheeting which exposed snow to direct sunlight. Temperature was at or above 10C over the snow below both rigid foam and open-cell foam with a strong diurnal variation, regardless of the addition of a reflective blanket. Beneath wet wood chips covered with a reflective blanket, temperature remained close to freezing even though air temperature was > 30C. There was no diurnal variation, indicating that wood chips effectively buffered thermal swings. It appears that a reflective surface over >20cm of wet wood chips is most effective at minimizing summer snow melt in humid, northeastern North America.