The terms sustainability, resilience and others group under the heading of ‘stability’. Their ubiquity speaks to a vital need to characterize changes in complex social and environmental systems. In a bewildering array of terms, practical measurements are essential to permit comparisons and so untangle underlying relationships.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Relevant articles
Open Access articles citing this article.
-
Honey bee food resources under threat from climate change
Nature Communications Open Access 30 December 2025
-
Farm resilience to climatic risk. A review
Agronomy for Sustainable Development Open Access 06 February 2025
-
Smart city and sustainability indicators: a bibliometric literature review
Discover Sustainability Open Access 08 July 2024
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$32.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$119.00 per year
only $9.92 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to the full article PDF.
USD 39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Donohue, I. et al. Ecol. Lett. 19, 1172–1185 (2016).
Pimm, S. L. Nature 307, 321–326 (1984).
Grafton, R. Q. et al. Nat. Sustain. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0376-1 (2019).
Tavor, T. & Teitler-Regev, S. Jàmbá 11, a534 (2019).
Fussell, E. Am. Behav. Sci. 59, 1231–1245 (2015).
Pimm, S. L. The Balance of Nature? Ecological Issues in the Conservation of Species and Communities (Univ. Chicago Press, 1991).
Arnoldi, J.-F., Bideault, A., Loreau, M. & Haegeman, B. J. Theor. Biol. 436, 79–92 (2018).
Keneni, G., Bekele, E., Imtiaz, M. & Dagne, K. Int. J. Plant Res. 2, 69–79 (2012).
Isbell, F. et al. Nature 526, 574–577 (2015).
Inchausti, P. & Halley, J. Science 293, 655–657 (2001).
Pimm, S. L. & Redfearn, A. Nature 334, 613–614 (1988).
Holling, C. S. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 4, 1–23 (1973).
Montoya, J. M., Donohue, I. & Pimm, S. L. Trends Ecol. Evol. 33, 71–73 (2018).
Lovejoy, T. E. & Nobre, C. Sci. Adv. 4, eaat2340 (2018).
Scheffers, B. R. et al. Science 354, aaf7671 (2016).
Kéfi, S., Holmgren, M. & Scheffer, M. Funct. Ecol. 30, 88–97 (2016).
Stein, C., Harpole, W. S. & Suding, K. N. Ecology 97, 2319–2330 (2016).
Capon, S. J. et al. Sci. Total Environ. 534, 122–130 (2015).
Royama, T. Ecol. Monogr. 54, 429–462 (1984).
Hutchings, J. A. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 62, 824–832 (2005).
WWF Living Planet Report 2016. Risk and Resilience in a New Era (WWW International, 2016).
Rockström, J. Beyond the Anthropocene. World Economic Forum (14 February 2017); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9ETiSaxyfk
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pimm, S.L., Donohue, I., Montoya, J.M. et al. Measuring resilience is essential to understand it. Nat Sustain 2, 895–897 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0399-7
Published:
Version of record:
Issue date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0399-7
This article is cited by
-
Honey bee food resources under threat from climate change
Nature Communications (2025)
-
Farm resilience to climatic risk. A review
Agronomy for Sustainable Development (2025)
-
Smart city and sustainability indicators: a bibliometric literature review
Discover Sustainability (2024)
-
Cities can benefit from complex supply chains
npj Urban Sustainability (2023)
-
Risk science offers an integrated approach to resilience
Nature Sustainability (2022)
