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Vulnerability, Resilience, & Adaptation: Societal Causes and Responses
Vulnerability, Resilience, & Adaptation: Societal Causes and Responses
Elizabeth L. MaloneJoint Global Change Research Institute
CRCES Workshop: Societal Impacts of Decadal Climate Variability in the United States
26-28 April 2007
2
Will better information—i.e., predictions about climate variability and change
and their impacts—help societies build resilience and adaptive
capacity?
Answer: Not necessarily, unless people see how such information relates to their lives and their future.
3
Rationale for studying vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation
Rationale for studying vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation
These connect climate with societal issues, such as development and well-being salience.
By assessing current vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity, we gain insight into current dependence on climate and can extend that insight to climate change. E.g., current lack of adaptation to current climate may mean less resilience/more vulnerability in the future.
Once the climate-society relationship begins to be defined, information about future climate becomes more important.
4
Why the Vulnerability-Resilience Indicators Model (VRIM)?
Why the Vulnerability-Resilience Indicators Model (VRIM)?
Changes the focus from physical impacts to meaningful societal consequences
Brings together social, economic, and environmental factors
Summarizes information via quantitative indicators
Scenario-driven, i.e., allows different future conditions to be explored
Allows comparisons (unlike most case studies) while preserving transparency (in sources of the “scores”).
5
Important ConceptsImportant Concepts
Vulnerability: capacity to be harmed; composite of sensitivity, adaptability, and exposure
Resilience: the ability to cope with or recover from exposure or shocks
Sensitivity: the degree to which changes and/or variability in climate lead to changes in system attributes
Adaptation: adjustments in anticipation of or in response to climate change and/or variability
Adaptive capacity: the ability to adjust to new conditions
Exposure: climate stimuli that affect a system or region
6
Climate Change & Variability
Mitigation
Adaptation
Adaptation capacity
Coping Capacity
Sensitivity
Vulnerability& Resilience
Human resourcesEconomic capacityEnvironmental capacity
FoodWaterSettlementHealthEcosystems
Exposure
Source: Brenkert and Malone, 2005.
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SensitivitySensitivity
Human settlement and infrastructure Population at flood risk from
sea level rise Population without access to
clean water and sanitation
Food Security Cereals production/ crop land
area Protein consumption/ per
capita
Ecosystem sensitivity Percent irrigated land Fertilizer use
Water security Water availability (demand/
supply) Precipitation amount
Human health Fertility rate Life expectancy
8
Coping and adaptation capacityCoping and adaptation capacity
Economic capacity GDP per capita Equity index
Human capital Dependency Ratio Literacy rate
Environmental capacity Land use measure (%
unmanaged land) SO2 emissions per unit area Population density
Example: Mexico rankedamong countries: second quartile
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
VietnamUruguayUkraineTurkeyJordan
ChileMalaysia
AlgeriaColombiaJamaica
OmanSri Lanka
BruneiBhutan
PanamaCubaPeru
MexicoEquatorial Guinea
Slovak RepublicSerbia and Montenegr
LibyaEcuador
MacedoniaLebanon
SurinamePoland
Czech RepublicBrazil
BulgariaHungary
MaltaBahrain
BarbadosThailandAlbania
IndonesiaMauritius
GabonBelize
sensitivity
resilience
coping
63rd of 160 countries
Proxy Information on the Ranking of the Resilience Indicator
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600
Oaxaca Chiapas
Guerrero Puebla
Yucatán Zacatecas
San Luis Potosí Distrito Federal
Baja California Sur Hidalgo
Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave Michoacán de Ocampo
Guanajuato Colima
Tlaxcala Durango
Aguascalientes Nayarit
Baja California Tabasco Morelos
Coahuila de Zaragoza México (country)
Chihuahua Querétaro de Arteaga
Campeche Quintana Roo
Sinaloa Sonora México
Tamaulipas Jalisco
Nuevo León
population at risk due to sealevelriseaccess to safe water
access to safe sanitation
cereal production/crop land
protein demand
birth rate
life expectancy
irrigation level
fertilizer use/crop land
water availability
precipitation
GDP per capita
modified Human Devlopment Index
dependency ratio
illiteracy levels
non-managed land (%)
SO2/total land
population density
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
sett
lem
ent
food
sec
urity
heal
th
ecos
yste
mre
silie
nce
wat
erav
aila
bilit
y
econ
omic
capa
city
hum
anre
sour
ces
envi
ronm
enta
lca
paci
ty
Jalisco
Oaxaca
The states with the highest and lowest resilience are similar in ecosystem resilience and close in environmental capacity, but
differ greatly in settlement security, food security, human health, human resources and economic capacity
Comparison of projected resilience of two Mexican states
Jalisco
20
30
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60
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80
90
100
1990 2005 2020 2035 2050 2065 2080 2095
resi
lien
ce i
nd
exOaxaca
20
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90
100
1990 2005 2020 2035 2050 2065 2080 2095
resi
lien
ce i
nd
ex
Jalisco
0
20
40
60
80
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1990 2005 2020 2035 2050 2065 2080 2095
% e
xpla
nat
ion
of
the
un
cert
ain
ty o
f th
e re
sili
ence
in
dex
by
the
vari
ou
s p
roxi
es
Oaxaca
0
20
40
60
80
100
1990 2005 2020 2035 2050 2065 2080 2095
% e
xpla
nat
ion
of
the
un
cert
ain
ty o
f th
e re
sili
ence
in
dex
by
the
vari
ou
s p
roxi
es
13
Assessing resilience and adaptive capacity reveals policy spaces for building both
Assessing resilience and adaptive capacity reveals policy spaces for building both
Although geographic and climatic conditions are important, even more important are the social-ecological systems in a region.
Results lead to the next set of questions about policy priorities in an area – but clearly different places have different policy needs.
The VRIM country-level adaptive capacity results have been combined with projected climate change from the COSMIC model to show that impacts may well outrun adaptive capacity in most places during this century (Yohe et al. 2006).