‘Rethinking the way we practice our professions’: social-ecological resilience for built environment professionals

ABSTRACT

Urbanisation and industrialisation have contributed to significant and detrimental changes in the earth’s natural environments. The concept of social-ecological resilience can assist this problem, by integrating the consideration of human and ecological systems in decision-making. An implication is that built environment professionals must be competent in social-ecological resilience knowledge and skills to ensure cities are well adapted to current environmental challenges, and do not further contribute to them. Yet the capabilities of built environment professionals to incorporate resilience thinking (theory and knowledge) into their work (skills and practice), is not well understood and is not well addressed in education theory. This paper contributes to this gap by: exploring the social-ecological resilience knowledge, skills, and practical experience of Australian built environment professionals, thereby identifying gaps to address in further and higher education. Results indicate that built environment professionals’ know about social-ecological resilience, but they identify their practical experience is low. Additionally, respondents are more confident with their abilities, compared to colleagues, and their profession at large. The results indicate that further and higher education offerings (e.g. university education, continuing professional education, and practice) must assist built environment professionals to further develop social-ecological skills. As one respondent stated – it will require ‘rethinking the way we practice our professions’.

KEYWORDS:

• socio-ecological resilience
• knowledge
• skills
• professionals
• built environment
• higher education

Acknowledgments

Funding for this research was provided through a University of Melbourne, Provost Learning and Teaching Initiatives Grant awarded in 2016. Thanks to Sheridan Blunt for feedback on an earlier version of the survey, and to Amanda Lo Cascio for research assistance provided. We thank the survey participants for their time taken to complete the survey, and to the industry associations and organisations who facilitated notification of our survey through their networks. Thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and beneficial feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a University of Melbourne, Provost Learning and Teaching Initiatives Grant 2016-2017.

Notes on contributors

Anna Hurlimann

Anna Hurlimann is an Associate Professor in Urban Planning, and the Assistant Dean of Graduate Research in the Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne. Anna’s research and teaching focuses on climate change adaptation and mitigation in the built environment with a particular focus on urban planning, water management, the integration of climate action with sustainable development goals, and equitable outcome. Anna has received research funding from various sources including through ARC Linkage and Discovery Grants.

Ruth Beilin

Ruth Beilin has a background in horticulture and environmental biology and a PhD in social science. She has 30 years in community based resource management, working with communities across international and domestic locations. Ruth’s research focuses on how people live in the landscape: how they shape it, how it shapes them, and what power they feel to make decisions with regard to production and conservation, land and water management.

Alan March

Alan March is a Professor in Urban Planning. His teaching includes disaster risk reduction, urban design, planning law and planning theory subjects. Alan was an Associate of the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute and has been the Leader of the research theme Risk Resilience and Transformation and of Cities and Towns.