Serializability is a concept in database management that ensures the consistency of transactions by guaranteeing that their execution results in the same state as if the transactions were executed in a sequential order, one after the other. It is a key criterion for determining the correctness of concurrent transaction executions, making sure that the final database state is consistent with some serial execution of those transactions. In essence, a schedule is considered serializable if it can be transformed into a serial schedule without altering the outcome of the transactions. This helps prevent issues such as lost updates, temporary inconsistency, and other anomalies in concurrent processing.