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Geodiversity and resilience: A scoping review
Maija Toivanen1, Daniel Santos2, Aleksi Räsänen3
1Geography Research Unit, University of Oulu, P.O. BOX 8000, 90014, Oulu, Finland. maija.toivanen@oulu.fi.
Ambio
|May 3, 2026
Summary
Resilience thinking often overlooks physical environments. Integrating geodiversity enhances resilience by recognizing the active role of geology in environmental and societal challenges.
Area of Science:
- Environmental Science
- Geology
- Sustainability Science
Background:
- Resilience thinking is crucial for environmental and societal challenges.
- Current resilience frameworks underrepresent physical foundations, focusing on ecological and social aspects.
- Geodiversity and geoheritage studies offer insights into the physical underpinnings of resilience.
Purpose of the Study:
- To systematically review geodiversity and geoheritage studies for connections to resilience concepts.
- To analyze how geodiversity implicitly engages with resilience.
- To identify barriers and opportunities for integrating geodiversity into resilience thinking.
Main Methods:
- Systematic scoping review of 90 geodiversity and geoheritage studies published between 2012 and 2025.
- Analysis of studies for explicit and implicit engagement with resilience concepts.
- Identification of common themes related to diversity, redundancy, slow variables, learning, and participation.
Main Results:
- Most reviewed studies implicitly engage with resilience concepts, particularly regarding diversity, redundancy, and adaptive management.
- Geodiversity enriches resilience by positioning physical environments as active participants in system change.
- Geodiversity can bridge typically separate natural and social dimensions in resilience approaches.
Conclusions:
- Integrating geodiversity into resilience thinking grounds it in geological reality, essential for sustainability.
- Barriers include disconnected disciplinary communities, descriptive evidence, and lagging geodiversity governance.
- Collaborative efforts are needed to overcome barriers and fully integrate geodiversity into resilience frameworks for sustainability challenges.
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