Toward convergence in social-ecological systems resilience assessment: A systematic review and conceptual framework

Resilience is widely used to describe how social-ecological systems (SES) respond to disturbance, yet its assessment remains conceptually fragmented due to diverse definitions, theories, and methods. A broad range of approaches, most notably indicator-based and system-based methods, have been applied to assess SES resilience. Existing reviews typically focus on specific sectors, regions, or techniques rather than the coherence of resilience assessment across the SES literature.As a result, there is limited consensus on how resilience should be assessed, and many studies inadequately represent SES dynamics, uncertainty, cross-scale interactions, and the interplay of endogenous and exogenous shocks, reducing comparability across assessments.A systematic literature review was conducted using Google Scholar and the Web of Science Core Collection. From 1335 identified publications, 121 peer-reviewed articles were selected and analyzed to examine how resilience is defined, assessed, and operationalized in SES contexts.The review finds that 59% of studies rely on static assessments, 74% do not explicitly account for uncertainty, and 96% neglect cross-scale dynamics or the interconnectedness of endogenous and exogenous shocks. Indicator-based approaches dominate (63%) but commonly lack standardized measurement criteria.The analysis is limited to identifying conceptual gaps and methodological patterns in existing SES resilience assessments and does not assess the empirical accuracy, predictive performance, or policy effectiveness of specific resilience measures.Rather than proposing new metrics, this study offers a unifying framework to guide more consistent, theoretically grounded SES resilience assessments and support future methodological development. • Resilience assessment remains fragmented, with limited consensus on how to assess it. • Despite extensive research, major gaps and inconsistencies remain in SES resilience assessment. • This study reviews SES resilience assessment methods and their alignment with its core principles. • Findings show indicator-based approaches dominate SES resilience assessment but lack standardization. • Six core resilience principles were identified and evaluated in current assessment practices.