Vulnerability Assessment and Case Studies Neil Adger and Nick Brooks Tyndall Centre and CSERGE School of Environmental Sciences, UEA AIACC Training Workshop on Development and Application of Integrated Scenarios in Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation

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Vulnerability Assessment and Case StudiesNeil
Adger and Nick BrooksTyndall Centre and
CSERGESchool of Environmental Sciences,
UEAAIACC Training Workshop on Development and
Application of Integrated Scenarios in Climate
Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
Assessments, April 2002
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Purposes

• Review concepts of vulnerability and adaptive
  capacity
• Review methods, data, and scenarios (climate and
  social) required for vulnerability assessment
• Case example of vulnerability and the social
  science required

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Defining terms

• Vulnerability is a function ofExposure to
  climatic hazard resulting from climate
  variability and changeSensitivity degree to
  which a system is affected by climate
  stimuliAdaptive capacity ability of a system
  to adjust and take opportunities

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INDICATORSMeasuring vulnerability
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Vulnerability of whom and to what?

• Vulnerability is context specific we measure
  the vulnerability
• OF a particular system, region or group
• TO a specific hazard, impact or outcome

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We can measure the vulnerability of

• a population group to drought (hazard) or famine
  (outcome)
• an agricultural system to drought (hazard)
• a coastal area to sea-level rise (hazard) or
  flooding (impact)
• a country to global climate change

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Risk and vulnerability?

• risk hazard x vulnerability
• This definition views vulnerability as socially
  constructed, not dependent on the geographical
  distribution of climatic or other threats
• Here we are essentially talking about social
  vulnerability to discrete phenomena.
• Vulnerability to climate change is a prior state

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Social vulnerability

• Depends on a systems capacity to adapt to change
• Is inversely related to adaptive capacity (but
  may depend on factors such as sensitivity)
• Is a useful concept when assessing the
  vulnerability of a clearly defined group or
  system to a specific threat

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Hazard distribution

• The likelihood that a system will be damaged by
  global climate change is highly dependent on
  (changes in) the distribution of hazards, as well
  as its vulnerability.
• Should we define vulnerability more widely to
  incorporate the distributional effects of climate
  change overall as opposed to social
  vulnerability?
• i.e. are we really interested in risk?

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Overall vulnerability

• Wider definition overall vulnerability is a
  function of
• Exposure/hazard (climate threats)
• Sensitivity (result of existing adaptation)
• Adaptive capacity (ability to adapt in future)
• Develop indicators for these 3 categories

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Risk hazard (social) vulnerability
equivalent to
Overall vulnerability f (exposure, sensitivity,
AC)
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Indicators of exposure to hazard

• Measure probability of occurrence of a
  potentially damaging (climatic) event
• We might use
• Historical climate-related disaster frequency
  (assuming more of the same)
• Model projections of either event frequency or
  suitable proxies for probability of occurrence
  (e.g. SSTs)
• Weighting by event severity in addition to above

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Historical climate-related disasters, world (from
CRED EM-DAT data)
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Sensitivity indicators

• Measure degree to which a systems physical
  attributes expose it to physical impacts of
  hazard
• E.g. geographic location of settlements (flood
  plain, hillslope, quality of housing)
• E.g. health of a population at onset of drought
• Sensitivity related to coping range, robustness,
  resilience
• Socially, geographically and environmentally
  constructed

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Adaptive capacity (AC) indicators

• Capture the following components of AC
• resources available for adaptation
• ability of people to deploy those resources
• willingness to undertake adaptive measures
• AC socially constructed but may be
  environmentally or geographically constrained
  depends heavily on socio-economic, political and
  institutional factors.

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Resources determining adaptive capacity

• Financial and natural capital
• Availability of labour, skills, knowledge (human
  capital)
• Access to technology
• Access to markets (e.g. income diversification)
• Distribution of resources poverty, inequality,
  equity issues

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Available resources possible proxies

• Financial capital income per capita, inequality
  indices, GDP
• Natural capital groundwater, cultivable land,
  energy sources, sustainability
• Human capital literacy, level of education,
  preservation of traditional knowledge (e.g. land
  management), number of graduates in science,
  particularly in climate/environment field
• Technology investment in research
  development, renewable and clean energy sources,
• Markets accessibility, openness of foreign
  markets, trade balances

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Deployment of resources

• Does infrastructure allow people to undertake
  adaptive measures?
• Does policy inhibit or encourage adaptation, or
  encourage maladaptive practices?
• Social capital how do people use formal and
  informal networks to their advantage?

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Helping or hindering adaptation

• Building codes tax (dis)incentives proxy
  percent of (new) settlements in vulnerable areas
  (maladaptation)
• Economic policy does it encourage migration to
  vulnerable areas? Proxy numbers migrating
• Self-determination do external factors such as
  debt and structural adjustment programmes
  undermine or constrain adaptive measures? Proxies
  related to debt impacts
• Overall policy environment proxies percentage
  of policies that explicitly incorporate measures
  to adapt to climate change number and degree of
  support for agencies involved in vulnerability
  assessment or adaptation programmes.

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Willingness to adapt

• Do social or cultural factors encourage or
  inhibit adaptation (e.g. resistance to change)?
• Proxy percentage of population adopting
  available no- or low-cost adaptive measures
  subsidised by government
• People may be sceptical about government
  sponsored adaptation schemes if they dont trust
  government, or assume hidden costs

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Data sources

• Hazards disaster data from CRED
  http//www.cred.be/emdat/ (frequency, numbers
  killed and otherwise effected, etc)
• Exposure e.g. Environmental Vulnerability Index
  (SOPAC) http//www.sopac.org.fj/Projects/Evi/
• Adaptive capacity Human Development Report
  Indicators http//www.undp.org/hdro/
• World Development Indicators from World Bank on
  CD-ROM (275 / 550) http//www.worldbank.org/data
  /
• Above data at national level higher resolution
  data from national agencies or through collection
  of new data.
• Vulnerability mapping projects

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Web links 1.

• http//www.ipcc.ch/pub/tar/wg2/ - Climate Change
  2001 Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
  (IPCC).
• http//www.fivims.net/ - Food Insecurity and
  Vulnerability Information and Mapping Systems.
• http//www.grid.unep.ch/ - UNEP Mapping Natural
  Hazards Occurrences and Vulnerable Populations.
• http//www.sopac.org.fj/Projects/Evi/index.html -
  SOPAC Environmental Vulnerability Index.
• http//www.sei.se/risk/workshop4.html - Stockholm
  Environment Institute International Workshop on
  Vulnerability and Global Environmental Change.
• http//www.fao.org/docrep/W5849T/w5849t09.htm -
  Food and Agriculture Organisation - Establishing
  a food insecurity and vulnerability information
  and mapping system (Ezzeddine Boutrif).
• http//www.oas.org/en/cdmp/bulletin/hazmap.htm -
  Caribbean Disaster Mitigation Project, Hazard
  Mapping and Vulnerability Assessment Workshop.
• http//www.clarklabs.org/10applic/risk/start.htm
  - Applications of Geographic Information Systems
  (GIS) Technology in Environmental Risk Assessment
  and Management. See especially Chapters 2, 3 and
  4.
• http//www.sopac.org.fj/nuke/article.php?sid20 -
  EU/SOPAC project Reducing Vulnerability of
  Pacific States.

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Web links 2.

• http//ns2.resalliance.org/pub/www/Journal/vol5/is
  s1/art19/ - ecological indicators
• http//www.uni-bonn.de/ihdp/IHDPUpdate0102/viewpoi
  nt.html - vulnerability, Kasperson viewpoint
• http//www.uni-bonn.de/ihdp/IHDPUpdate0102/article
  7.html - vulnerability and African groundwater
  resources article
• http//www.uni-bonn.de/ihdp/index.html -
  International Human Dimensions Programme on
  Global Environmental Change
• http//www.uni-bonn.de/ihdp/vulnerability.htm -
  IHDP workshop report (Assessing Vulnerability to
  Global Environmental Risks)

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Case study of vulnerability

• Present day vulnerability to climate variability
  in coastal Vietnam
• What are the determinants of social
  vulnerability?
• Study scope what is vulnerability and how
  measured?
• Methods in assessing vulnerability what do
  social scientists do?

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Defining vulnerability to hazards

• Vulnerability is the set of characteristics of a
  group or individual in terms of their capacity to
  anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from
  the impact of a natural hazard.It involves a
  combination of factors that determine the degree
  to which someones life and livelihood is put at
  risk by a discrete and identifiable event in
  nature or society.
• (Blaikie et al. 1994 p. 9)
• Vulnerability is essentially about the human
  ecology of endangerment ... and is embedded in
  the social geography of settlements and land
  uses, and the space or distribution of influence
  in communities and political organisation.
• (Hewitt, 1997, p 143)

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Vulnerability indicators
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Characteristics of vulnerability and their
measurement
 
 
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Why does underlying vulnerability change? the
Vietnam context

• Changing social and political processes
• Rapid economic growth
• Rapid demographic change
• Future change in climate risks

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Climate variability observed Vietnams landfall
typhoons 1900-1995
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Location of Xuan Thuy case study area, northern
Vietnam
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Farming system Xuan Thuy
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Changing poverty and inequality as indicators of
vulnerability
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How are inequality and vulnerability related?
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Institutional adaptation observed

• Coastal defence in the reform
• Re-emergence of civil society for collective
  security
• Spontaneous adaptation through mangrove
  rehabilitation

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Coastal defences, Giao Thuy District
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Collective action for water management
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Labour movements for coastal defence
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Vulnerability trends

• INCREASING vulnerability
• 1 Increasingly skewed incomes
• 2 Increasing reliance on aquaculture
• 3 Reduction in collective action by Communes

• DECREASING vulnerability
• 1 Decreasing poverty
• 2 Civil society collective action
• 3 Spontaneous adaptation and mangrove replanting

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Vulnerability analysis - lessons

• Vulnerability to climate variability is a dynamic
  social process
• Current vulnerability is a good proxy for
  near-future vulnerability
• policies implications ways to ameliorate
  vulnerability
• equitable land and resource allocation
• effective evolution of collective action

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Links between scenarios and vulnerability
assessment

• Social vulnerability different parameters and
  scenarios for different spatial scales
• Vuln. as a fn (Exp., Sens., Adapt. Cap.)
• Vulnerability scenarios more appropriate for near
  future / shorter time-scales