In resilience theory, most results come from analysing cases of natural resource governance within which — whether global or local (but very specific) — challenges are to be solved.

In other words, we are able to answer the questions of ‘resilience of what to what?’ — these are cases of specific resilience. Of course, such cases are studied in an easier manner; thus, much more scientific knowledge is available. On the other hand, it is understandable that many people are more interested in resilience against unexpected and novel events, such as disasters or pandemics.

Social-ecological systems all have their own disturbance regimes. These are patterns of disturbances that repeatedly occurred over the past millennia and the system adapted to them — in fact, without them, the system could not sustain its resilience; they work like reminders, trigger the memory of the system and, thus, the adaptive capacity is not lost. “Memory” in this context does not necessarily mean a cognitive ability to remember past events but structural patterns that were shaped by past events and that constitute the system’s ability to respond to something — for instance, the presence of a specific species that facilitates rebuilding after a shock.