Resilience Mechanism and Practical Insights from Water-related Physical Form in Jiangnan Based on Traditional Ecological Wisdom

The spaces related to the water network in traditional Jiangnan represent typical social-ecological systems. The underlying resilience capacities are built upon virtuous interactions between the human social system and the natural ecological system. Based on the Press-Pulse Dynamics (PPD) model proposed by Collins, et al, this paper took Pingjiang Fu as the case study. It explained how ecosystem services had acted as a bridge which connected the built environment of water networks with the development of human communities in traditional Jiangnan, and clarified how the social-ecological system had fostered, developed and improved the resilience of the water networks in Jiangnan during the process. This paper creatively argued that the ecological wisdom of building social-ecological systems relies on a balanced supply-demand relation of ecosystem services. It further proposed the resilience mechanism, including persistence, adaptability and transformability. Finally, it concluded several practical insights for building resilient modern communities in Jiangnan in order to enhance these three capacities and to guide the transformation of the water networks into resilient social-ecological systems.