Section 2:Vulnerability approaches

EGS 3021F: Vulnerability to Environmental Change Gina Ziervogel (gina@csag.uct.ac.za)December 2011

This work by Gina Ziervogel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

•Risk/Hazard•Political economy/ecology•Ecological resilience

Eakin and Luers (2006)

Conceptual lineages of vulnerability research:

Risk/hazardApproach to vulnerability research

Risk/hazard approach

Focal Questions: What are the hazards? What are the impacts? Where and when?

Key attributes: Exposure (physical threat, external to

system) Sensitivity

Exposure unit: Places, sectors, activities Landscapes, regions

Decision scale of audience Regional Global

(Eakin and Luers, 2006)

By Gina Ziervogel

……Risk/hazard approach

Definition of vulnerability

The degree to which an exposure unit is susceptible to harm due to exposure to a perturbation or stress, and the ability (or lack thereof) of the exposure unit to cope, recover, or fundamentally adapt (become a new system or become extinct).

(Kasperson et al, 2001)

……Risk/hazard approach

Evolved from natural hazards literature Hazards characterisation, risk threshold,

human behaviour

Geographers such as ▪ Gilbert White – human factors involved in disasters

Natural Hazards: Local, National, Global (1974)▪ Burton I, White G, Kates R. 1978. Environment as Hazard.

New York: Oxford Univ.▪ Cutter SL. 1996. Vulnerability to environmental hazards.

Prog. Hum. Geogr. 20:529–39

History ……Risk/hazard approach

Used in IPCC (2001) Sensitivity to risk + possible economic & social

losses Quantifications used as proxy for vulnerability

Late 1990s Increased attention to social drivers and institutional

conditions▪ Kelly PM, Adger WN. 2000. Theory and practice in

assessing vulnerability to climate change and facilitating adaptation. Clim. Change 47:325–52

▪ Burton I, Huq S, Lim B, Pilifosova O,Schipper EL. 2002. From impacts assessment to adaptation priorities: the shaping of adaptation policy. Clim. Policy 2:145– 159

……Risk/hazard approach

Source: Emergency Events Database EM-DATCentre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters CRED(http://www.emdat.be/)

Definition of disaster:>10 killed>100 affected

Great natural catastrophes and economic losses

( Munich Re 2000, in Kasperson et al, 2005: 154 )

Recent natural hazards

(

(www.reliefweb.int)

Mexico

(www.reliefweb.int)

Flooding

54 000 people displaced

Damage to bridges/roads affecting 344 000

145 deathshttp://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=38212

4 Jan 2009

14 April 2009

Critique

‘Natural’ hazards should be seen as ‘social’ hazards

Need to acknowledge how political and economic forces make people more vulnerable

(Wisner et al, 2004)

(Kaplan et al, 2009)

(Kaplan et al, 2009)

Political economy/ecologyApproach to vulnerability research

Political ecology approaches to vulnerability emerged in response to risk-hazard assessment of climate impacts and disasters▪ Hewitt K, ed. 1983. Interpretations of Calamity. Boston,

MA: Allen & Unwin

Characteristics: Analyses of social and economic processes Interacting scales of causation Social differences

Political economy/ecology approach

(Eakin and Luers, 2006)

Focal Questions: How are people and places affected differently? What explains differential capacities to cope and

adapt? What are the causes and consequences of

differential susceptibility?

Key attributes: Capacity Sensitivity Exposure

Political economy/ecology

Exposure unit Individuals, households, social groups Communities, livelihoods

Decision scale of audience Local Regional Global

Political economy/ecology

“Vulnerability comes at the confluence of underdevelopment, social and economic marginality and the inability to garner sufficient resources to maintain the natural resource bases and cope with the climatological and ecological instabilities of semi-arid zones”

(Ribot et al, 1996)

Political economy/ecology

Sociopolitical Cultural Economic factors

Underpinned by Amartya Sen’s concept of entitlements and capabilities• Sen (1981).Poverty and Famines: an Essay on

Entitlement and Deprivation.

Links to Bohle et al.’s (1994) ‘space’ of vulnerability

Differential:- Exposure to hazards- Impact- Capacities

Political economy/ecology

Vulnerability space

(Bohle et al, 1994)

Case study

Mexico:Differential outcomes in crop yields during droughtcan’t be explained by rainfall

Land tenureHistorical biases in access to resources

Colonial political economy, imposed by Spanish, allowed landholders to manipulate price of staples poor suffered

Poor lack credit, fertilizer etc.New techniques for agricultural intensification replace

traditional hazard prevention strategies

(Liverman, 1994)

Political economy/ecology

Case study

( http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3200/ENVT.51.2.26-36)

Hurricane impact and response

Hazards associated with hurricanes: High winds Tornadoes Heavy rainfall Rain-induced flooding

  Response:

Evacuation Sheltering

Social and racial stratification in America has impacted on response

 (Cutter and Smith, 2009)

Increasing costs of natural disasters world wide

(http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/RisingCost/)

Historical response 1926 – Mississippi river

White power barons demanded that levee downstream be destroyed to alleviate flooding potential

Dynamited banks and destroyed homes and businesses of poor African Americans to save wealthy city

2005 – Hurricane Katrina Preparation and response – differential treatment

following class and racial divides Lessons learnt?

(Cutter and Smith, 2009)

2008: Hurricane Gustav, southern Louisiana Evacuated 1.9 million people

53 deaths 2 evacuations: 1 for those with car and 1 for those without▪ Those with cars returned 3 days after event

Those without cars Designed to be race and class neutral Mainly poor and minority groups Transported on state buses ▪ not told where they were going or how long it would take

Insufficient facilities (sleeping, ablution) Sex offenders told to ‘fend for themselves’ Returned more than 5 days later

(Cutter and Smith, 2009)

2008: Hurricane Ike, Galveston Texas

Major Hurricanes not frequent along this coast

125 lives lost mainly white middle income residents 1 million evacuated, 100 000 didn’t although category 2 hurricane, category

4 storm surge with strong winds

(Cutter and Smith, 2009)

(Cutter and Smith, 2009: 33)

Ecological resilienceApproach to vulnerability research

Ecological resilience Focal questions

Why and how do systems change? What is the capacity to respond to

change? What are the underlying processes that

control the ability to cope or adapt?

By Gina Ziervogel

Exposure unit Coupled human-environment systems Ecosystems

Decision scale Landscapes Ecoregions Multiple scales

Ecological resilience

Resilience is “the capacity of a system to undergo disturbance and maintain its functions and controls” (Carpenter et al, 2001: 766)

Key attributes Amount of change the system can undergo Threshold identification Degree of self-organisation Degree to build capacity to learn and adapt Factors than enable disturbance to be absorbed

(Carpenter et al, 2001)

Ecological resilience

Resilience for whom or what?

Cannot assume social and ecological resilience move in the same direction Food production increases and ecological

diversity decreases (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,

http://www.maweb.org/en/Scenarios.aspx )

History

Contrasts to earlier views of system existing near equilibrium

Engineering resilience – return to predisturbed state after disturbance

Systems exhibit non- and multi-equilibrium dynamics

Ecological resilience

Historical cont.. Human activity one of many driving forces Timmerman (1981) ▪ Vulnerability, resilience and the collapse of society▪ Linked resilience theory to social sciences▪ Vulnerability of society to hazard result of rigidity

Adaptive co-management of human-managed resource systems▪ Enable dynamic learning▪ Enhance flows of knowledge across scales

Additional case study materialIntegrating resilience, political ecology and risk/hazard

Cross-cutting case study: Social-ecological resilience to coastal disasters Resilient SES have diverse mechanisms for

living with and learning from change and uncertainty

Instead of attempting to control changes the concept of resilience aims at “sustaining and enhancing the capacity of SESs to adapt to uncertainty and surprise.”(Adger et al, 2005) 

Hazards become disasters when resilience is eroded because of : Environmental change Human action

Components of resilience easily eroded if importance not recognized   e.g. overfishing and pollution

can’t absorb disturbance regime shifts coral replaced by seaweed

(Adger et al, 2005)

Field in Banda Aceh, Indonesia (Adger et al, 2005)

Tsunami impact and response Ecological resilience

Close to epicentre: Mangroves, dunes etc made no difference to impact

Sri Lanka: smaller waves dissipated by mangroves

Strong local governance Less impact in west Sumatra and Thai island Inherited knowledge of tsunamis, early warning

Where ecosystems were undermined, harder to recover Loss of traditional income sources (Adger et al,

2005)

Resilience response

Regenerating physical and ecological structures doesn’t solve problem Strengthen long-term employment Manage natural resilience of reefs▪ water quality coral reefs

Need to address multiple scales

Reducing perverse incentives that Destroy natural capital Exacerbate vulnerability

(Adger et al, 2005)

Review of vulnerability approaches

Review

Vulnerability definitions and concepts

Vulnerability frameworks Conceptual approaches

Review of vulnerability approachesChoose from Risk/Hazard; Political economy; Ecological resilience

Vulnerability approach

1 Why and how do systems change?

2 Key attributes: exposure and sensitivity

3 Exposure unit: individuals

4 What are the causes and consequences of differential susceptibility?

5 Gilbert White

6 Threshold identification

7 Sen’s concept of entitlement

Review of vulnerability approaches

Vulnerability approach

1 Why and how do systems change? Resilience

2 Key attributes: exposure and sensitivity Risk/hazard

3 Exposure unit: individuals Political ecology

4 What are the causes and consequences of differential susceptibility?

Political ecology

5 Gilbert White Risk/hazard

6 Threshold identification Resilience

7 Sen’s concept of entitlement Political ecology

ReferencesAdger, N.W., Hughes, T.P., Folke, C., Carpenter, S. R. and Rockstöm, J. 2005. Social-Ecological

Resilience to Coastal Disasters. Science, 309 (5737): 1036-1039Bohle, H. G., Downing, T. E. and Watts, M. J. 1994.Climate change and social vulnerability:

Toward a sociology and geography of food insecurity. Global Environmental Change, 4(1): 37-48

Carpenter SR, Walker BH, Anderies JM, Abel N. 2001. From metaphor to measurement: Resilience of what to what? Ecosystems 4:765–81

Chopra, K., Leemans, R., Kumar, P., and Simons, H. 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Policy responses, Volume 3. Findings of the Responses of Working Group of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Washington, Covelo, London: Island Press. (accessed at http://www.maweb.org/en/Scenarios.aspx)

Cutter, S. and Smith, M. 2009. Fleeing from the hurricane’s wrath: Evacuation and the two Americas. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 51 (2): 26-36

Eakin, H. and Luers, A. L. 2006. Assessing the Vulnerability of Social-Environmental Systems. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 31: 365-394

Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), 2001. McCarthy, J.J., Canziani, O.F., Leary, N.A., Dokken, D.J. and White, K.S (eds). Contribution of Working Group II to the Third Assessment Report, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, USA: Cambridge University Press.  (accessed at http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/ )

Kaplan, M., Renaud, F. G. and Luchters, G. 2009. Vulnerability assessment and protective effects of coastal vegetation during the 2004 Tsunami in Sri Lanka. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 9: 1479-1494

Kasperson, R. E., Kasperson, J. X., and Dow, K. 2001. Vulnerability, equity, and global environmental change, in J. X. Kasperson and R. E. Kasperson (eds.), Global Environmental Risk, London: Earthscan.

 Liverman, D.M. 1994. Vulnerability to Global Environmental Change. Chapter 26, p. 326-342 in S. Cutter, (ed), Environmental Risks and Hazards. Prentice Hall: Saddle River, NJ. (Reprint of 1990 report published by Clark University)

Munich Re 2000: Topics 2000: Natural Catastrophes—the Current Position. Munich, Germany. (Available online at www.munichre.com) in Kasperson, R.E., E. Archer, D. Caceres, K. Dow, T. Downing, T. Elmqvist, C. Folke, G. Han, K. Iyengar, C. Vogel, K. Wilson and G. Ziervogel, 2005. Vulnerable Peoples and Places.

Ribot JC, Najam A, and Watson G. 1996. Climate variation, vulnerability and sustainable development in the semiarid tropics. In Ribot, J.C., Magalhaes, A.R. and Panagides, S.S. (eds), Climate Variability, Climate Change and Social Vulnerability in the Semi-arid Tropics, pp. 13–51. Cambridge, UK:University Cambridge Press

Scoones, I. 1998. Sustainable rural livelihoods: a framework for analysis. IDS working paper, 72. Brighton: IDS.

Timmerman P. 1981. Vulnerability, resilience and the collapse of society. Rep. 1, Inst. Environ. Stud., Toronto, Canada

Wisner, B., Blaikie, P., Cannon, T., Davis, I., 2004. At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability, and Disasters. New York: Routledge

All web links were checked in November 2011

References continued