Academics and practitioners have become more interested in the operationalization and measurement of social-ecological resilience. An analysis of how social-ecological resilience has been operationalized and measured is crucial to understanding systems complexity and dynamics and for clarifying empirical cases of monitoring programmes in ways that enrich their utility and explanatory power. The literature shows that social-ecological resilience has been operationalized using the concepts of adaptability and absorption of disturbance. In addition, diversity and connectivity are principles that have been studied. Climate change in rural coastal regions is the most common stressor that has been studied, and the human dimension of such systems is the dominant focus. Systems interactions, feedbacks and thresholds are rarely identified or assessed. In addition, attributes of the system primarily using indicators are preferred over analysing causal relationships with models. Answering the question of what this resilience is for is a very important aspect of defining the system and the method for assessing resilience.