Vulnerability: A generally applicable conceptual framework for climate change research

Abstract The term ‘vulnerability’ is used in many different ways by various scholarly communities. The resulting disagreement about the appropriate definition of vulnerability is a frequent cause for misunderstanding in interdisciplinary research on climate change and a challenge for attempts to develop formal models of vulnerability. Earlier attempts at reconciling the various conceptualizations of vulnerability were, at best, partly successful. This paper presents a generally applicable conceptual framework of vulnerability that combines a nomenclature of vulnerable situations and a terminology of vulnerability concepts based on the distinction of four fundamental groups of vulnerability factors. This conceptual framework is applied to characterize the vulnerability concepts employed by the main schools of vulnerability research and to review earlier attempts at classifying vulnerability concepts. None of these one-dimensional classification schemes reflects the diversity of vulnerability concepts identified in this review. The wide range of policy responses available to address the risks from global climate change suggests that climate impact, vulnerability, and adaptation assessments will continue to apply a variety of vulnerability concepts. The framework presented here provides the much-needed conceptual clarity and facilitates bridging the various approaches to researching vulnerability to climate change.

[1]  N. Rao How to Evaluate Vulnerability in Changing Environmental Conditions ? , 2022 .

[2]  R. Kasperson,et al.  A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science , 2003, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[3]  Elizabeth L. Malone,et al.  VULNERABILITY TO CLIMATE CHANGE A Quantitative Approach , 2001 .

[4]  Timothy R. Carter,et al.  The Impact of climatic variations on agriculture , 1988 .

[5]  Burton Al The environment as hazard , 1978 .

[6]  D. Lobell,et al.  A method for quantifying vulnerability, applied to the agricultural system of the Yaqui Valley, Mexico , 2003 .

[7]  Lynn P. Nygaard,et al.  Mapping vulnerability to multiple stressors: climate change and globalization in India , 2004 .

[8]  W. Adger,et al.  Theory and Practice in Assessing Vulnerability to Climate Change andFacilitating Adaptation , 2000 .

[9]  Critical environmental regions: concepts distinctions and issues. , 1995 .

[10]  Jouni Paavola,et al.  Justice and adaptation to climate change , 2002 .

[11]  Robert W. Kates,et al.  The Interaction of Climate and Society , 1985 .

[12]  Christian Wissel,et al.  Babel, or the ecological stability discussions: an inventory and analysis of terminology and a guide for avoiding confusion , 1997, Oecologia.

[13]  S. Schiavon,et al.  Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. , 2007 .

[14]  C. Corvalan,et al.  Framework for the development of environmental health indicators. , 1995, World health statistics quarterly. Rapport trimestriel de statistiques sanitaires mondiales.

[15]  Frank Biermann,et al.  Proceedings of the 2002 Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change: knowledge for the sustainable transition - the challenge for Social Science , 2004 .

[16]  J. St Cyr,et al.  Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management At Risk : Natural Hazards , People ' s Vulnerability , and Disasters , 2011 .

[17]  Amy Luers,et al.  The surface of vulnerability: An analytical framework for examining environmental change , 2005 .

[18]  Jerry T. Mitchell,et al.  Revealing the Vulnerability of People and Places: A Case Study of Georgetown County, South Carolina , 2000 .

[19]  Laurie Geller,et al.  Under the Weather: Climate, Ecosystems, and Infectious Disease , 2001 .

[20]  Richard S. J. Tol,et al.  Climate, Change and Risk , 1999 .

[21]  W. Adger Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and Extremes in Coastal Vietnam , 1999 .

[22]  B. Wisner,et al.  At Risk: Natural Hazards, People's Vulnerability and Disasters , 1996 .

[23]  R. Nicholls,et al.  Assessment of coastal vulnerability to climate change , 1999 .

[24]  W. Adger,et al.  THEORY AND PRACTICE IN ASSESSING VULNERABILITY TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND FACILITATING ADAPTATION , 2000 .

[25]  M. Prowse Towards a Clearer Understanding of 'Vulnerability' in Relation to Chronic Poverty , 2003 .

[26]  R. Chambers Editorial Introduction: Vulnerability, Coping and Policy , 1989 .

[27]  Lynn P. Nygaard,et al.  What's in a word? Conflicting interpretations of vulnerability in climate change research , 2004 .

[28]  Robin M. Leichenko,et al.  Double exposure: assessing the impacts of climate change within the context of economic globalization , 2000 .

[29]  S. Huq,et al.  From impacts assessment to adaptation priorities: the shaping of adaptation policy , 2002 .

[30]  R. K. Dixon,et al.  Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change , 1998 .

[31]  J. Norwine,et al.  Geography as human ecology , 1980 .

[32]  S. Cutter Vulnerability to environmental hazards , 1996 .

[33]  S. Bernstein,et al.  Introduction , 2022 .

[34]  R. Pielke,et al.  Vulnerability and Risk: Some Thoughts from a Political and Policy Perspective , 2003, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[35]  F. Laroui,et al.  Environment and Multidisciplinarity Three Examples of Avoidable Confusion , 2002 .

[36]  F. Biermann The Challenge for Social Science , 2006 .

[37]  Jeanne X. Kasperson,et al.  Regions at risk : comparisons of threatened environments , 1996 .

[38]  F. Ellis The Determinants of Rural Livelihood Diversification in Developing Countries , 2008 .

[39]  H. Füssel,et al.  Vulnerability in Climate Change Research: A Comprehensive Conceptual Framework , 2005 .

[40]  W. Godwin Article in Press , 2000 .

[41]  M. Janssen,et al.  Scholarly networks on resilience, vulnerability and adaptation within the human dimensions of global environmental change , 2006 .

[42]  B. Affeltranger Hidup Akrab dengan Bencana : Sebuah Tinjauan Global Tentang Inisiatif - Inisiatif Pengurangan Bencana = Living with Risk : A Global Review of Disaster Reduction Initiatives , 2008 .

[43]  Richard J. T. Klein,et al.  The Science of Adaptation: A Framework for Assessment , 1999 .

[44]  M. Prowse Towards a clearer understanding of 'vulnerability' inrelation to chronic poverty, CPRC Working Paper No. 24 , 2003 .

[45]  N. Brooks Vulnerability, risk and adaptation: A conceptual framework , 2002 .

[46]  Dorothea Hilhorst,et al.  Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development and People , 2004 .

[47]  E. Malone,et al.  Adaptation Policy Frameworks for Climate Change: Developing Strategies, Policies and Measures , 2004 .

[48]  W. Adger,et al.  Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and the Architecture of Entitlements , 1999 .

[49]  Kirstin Dow,et al.  Understanding global environmental change: the contributions of risk analysis and management , 1990 .

[50]  Anand Patwardhan,et al.  Assessing vulnerability for climate adaptation , 2005 .

[51]  Susan L. Cutter,et al.  The Vulnerability of Science and the Science of Vulnerability , 2003 .

[52]  Jeanne X. Kasperson,et al.  Risk analysis, corporations and the globalization of risk , 2005 .

[53]  M Sharpe,et al.  Living with risk. , 1999, Journal of environmental monitoring : JEM.

[54]  Glyn A. Holton Defining Risk , 2004 .

[55]  Barry Newell,et al.  A conceptual template for integrative human–environment research , 2005 .

[56]  Robert W. Mc Collum Epidemiologic Methods , 1961, The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.

[57]  Knowledge for the sustainability transition , 2007 .

[58]  Roger A. Pielke,et al.  Vegetation, water, humans and the climate; a new perspective on an interactive system , 2004 .

[59]  Richard J. T. Klein,et al.  Towards a Formal Framework of Vulnerability to Climate Change , 2009 .

[60]  H. Füssel Coevolution of the Political and Conceptual Frameworks for Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments , 2004 .

[61]  H. Norin,et al.  Environmental hazards , 1985 .

[62]  Colleen Vögel,et al.  Regions at risk: Comparisons of threatened environments , 1997 .

[63]  R. Leemans,et al.  A Multidisciplinary multi-scale framework for assessing vulnerability to global change , 2004 .

[64]  Jesse H. Ausubel,et al.  Climate Impact Assessment , 1985 .

[65]  Richard J. T. Klein,et al.  Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments: An Evolution of Conceptual Thinking , 2006 .

[66]  Barry Smit,et al.  Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change : Concepts , Issues , Assessment Methods , 2001 .

[67]  T. Heckelei,et al.  Global Environmental Change , 2018, The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology.

[68]  Frank Biermann Knowledge for the sustainability transition: the challenge for Social Science , 2004 .

[69]  D. Ball Regions of Risk: a Geographical Introduction to Disasters , 1998 .

[70]  J. Palutikof,et al.  Climate change 2007 : impacts, adaptation and vulnerability , 2001 .

[71]  S. Pickett,et al.  Interdisciplinary Research: Maintaining the Constructive Impulse in a Culture of Criticism , 1999, Ecosystems.