Resilience analysis of the interaction of between typhoons and land use change

Recent typhoons impacting Taiwan have produced heavy rains and flooding, causing tremendous property damage and human casualties. Interactions between typhoons, urban sprawl and economic development are rapidly changing social-ecological systems, increasing the sensitivity of peri-urban areas and their natural environments. These complex dynamic human–environment interactions can be studied using a resilience approach (Anderies et al., 2006, Carpenter and Brock, 2004, GLP, 2005, Gunderson and Holling, 2002, Schouten et al., 2009, UGEC, 2005 and Walker and Salt, 2006). This paper presents a resilience analysis approach to evaluate the probability that Taiwan's social-ecological systems can resist changes associated with an increased frequency and intensity of typhoons. This resilience analysis is composed of three parts: system performance (SP), recovery duration (RD) and recovery efforts (RE). It examines changes in the resilience of social and ecological systems to typhoons and is applied to the Taipei-Taoyuan area using Geographic Information System (GIS) software. The results of the analysis show the changing patterns of system performance (SP), recovery duration (RD) and recovery efforts (RE) in response to changes in land cover and extreme weather, which degrade ecosystem services.

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► Typhoons’ precipitation is the main disturbance in Taiwan's social-ecological system.
► Land use change from forests to agricultural use or urban use causes a loss of ecosystem resilience.
► An increased frequency and intensity of typhoons’ rainfall also affects ecosystems’ resilience.