1

Vulnerability of People, Places and Systems to Environmental Change

Neil LearySTART

December 18, 2002CMU Distance Seminar

2

Consequences of environmental change are not uniform

• Differ for different– People– Places– Times

• Responses to the risks will also differ

3

Vulnerability Assessment

• Investigation of – causes of differential consequences and– responses to offset, lessen or prevent potential adverse

consequences.• Seeks answers to questions such as

– Who (or what) is vulnerable?– To what are they vulnerable?– Why are they vulnerable?– What responses can lessen vulnerability?

4

Overview of talk

• Define vulnerability and related concepts• Compare vulnerability and impact assessment

approaches• Describe selected frameworks for vulnerability

assessment• Summary from selected literature of who and

what are vulnerable to global environmental change

5

Numerous definitions of vulnerability

• Differ in their emphases and details• Common elements of most definitions:

– the capacity to suffer harm from exposure to perturbations or stresses

• climate change and extremes, land degradation, demographic change, technological change, . . .

– this capacity is conditioned by a variety of internal factors that shape the state of the people, system or place being exposed

6

Two strands in study of vulnerability: biophysical and social

• Biophysical - roots in natural hazards field– focus is on characterizing exposure to a hazard in

biophysical terms• identify spatial distribution of the hazard• estimate human occupancy of hazard zone• determine the magnitude, duration, frequency of the

hazard• estimate the potential loss of life and property associated

with occurrence of the hazard

7

Social strand of vulnerability research

• Primary attention given to social determinants of vulnerability

• Causes of vulnerability sought in the social processes that – place people in harm’s way– shape capacities to absorb stresses, cope with and

adapt to change, and recover from harm

8

Integration of these strands

• Has yielded a framework in which determinants of vulnerability are grouped into 3 dimensions of vulnerability– Exposure– Sensitivity– Resilience

*Coping and adaptation capacities are key aspects of sensitivity and resilience.

9

Framework for Vulnerability Assessment

10

Vulnerability can be lessened by interventions at a number of points

• Lessen exposure to perturbations and stresses• Lessen sensitivities to exposures• Increase capacities to cope or adapt• Increase resilience and recovery potential

11

Response MeasureDimension of Vulnerability

Acted UponExposure Sensitivity Capacities Resilience

• Anticipate exposures, prepare for potential effects x x

• Migrate or limit development in exposed place x x

• Eliminate or suppress disease vectors x• Transfer water to areas/activities of priority need x

• Switch to more robust crop varieties x• Diversify sources of household income and livelihoods x x x

• Establish mechanisms for water transfers x x• Expand health care infrastructure x x x• Reform land tenure rules x x x

12

Impact vs Vulnerability Assessment

Impact Assessment• Motivation: how bad are the

risks?• Attempt to “predict” impacts• Careful attention to modeling

future exposure• Capacities not emphasized• Focus on a single stress• Recent experience not directly

relevant• Treatment of adaptation is ad

hoc, afterthought

Vulnerability Assessment• Motivation: what would reduce

risks?• Investigate causes of vulnerability• Careful attention to social causes

of vulnerability, capacities to respond using sensitivity analyses

• Multiple stresses considered• Recent experience with hazards,

stresses used as analogues• Treatment of adaptation central

13

Common Ground for V & I Analyses

• VA needed to provide more sophisticated understanding & representation of– Capacities of people, communities, systems– Adaptation processes and effectiveness– Dimensions of the hazard that matter most

• Impact models can integrate info about capacities with “predicted” exposures– Quantitative estimates of impacts for different scenarios of capacities and

exposures– Quantitative risk analysis

14

Some approaches to vulnerability assessment

• Entitlements theory (A. Sen, 1981)• Political-ecology (Bohle, Downing, Watts, 1994)• Coupled human-environment system

(Kasperson et al, 2002)

15

“Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat. It is not the characteristic of there being not enough food to eat. While the later can cause the former, it is but one of many possible causes.”

A. Sen, Poverty and Famines, An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, 1981, pg 1

16

Entitlements framework

• Endowment bundle – individual’s own labor power plus land and other assets

he/she owns• Entitlement mapping

– rules, processes for transforming endowment bundle into entitlements (e.g. market structure & regulations, rights to communal output, . . .)

• Entitlement set– commodity bundles, including food, that can be commanded

given an initial endowment

17

• Endowments can be partitioned into those that map into entitlement sets that– include a minimum food requirement and allow the

individual to avoid starvation and– those that do not and in consequence lead to

starvation.

18

Environmental change can make people more (less) vulnerable to hunger/poverty

• Collapsing (expanding) endowments– e.g. climate change that reduces (increases) productivity of a

peasant’s land• Changes in entitlement mapping

– e.g. land use changes that increase (decrease) food prices• These changes can place minimum food requirements

and basic needs within or outside the reach of some.

19

Applications of entitlement theory

• Kelly and Adger (2000) examine effect of privatizing economy of Vietnam on vulnerability of coastal villages to storms– variety of effects on endowments and entitlement

mappings– net effects ambiguous– but can identify aspects that amplify or dampen

vulnerability and which can be targeted by adaptive responses

20

Political-Ecology Framework

• 3 Dimensions to vulnerability– Exposure to crises, stress, shocks– Capacity to cope– Recovery potential

• How person, group or place is situated in these dimensions determined by– Human ecology– Expanded entitlements– Political economy

21

• Human ecology: relations between society and nature– Means by which humans transform nature into goods and services &

properties of society and ecosystems that govern transformations

• Expanded entitlements: extension of Sen to wider social entitlements

• Political economy: macro-scale processes – Set/change rules for how entitlements are secured, contested, defended; – Also for drawing on broader resources for recovery– Shape development path; place of different groups in it.

22

Integrated vulnerability/adaptation

Source: Bohle, Watts, Downing

23

Subsistence herders in Mongolia

• Exposed to “dzud” (harsh winter)• Livelihood is sensitive to rangeland productivity, which

is impacted by “dzud”• Resilience shaped by condition of land, which is

function of history of land use• Land tenure key determinant of entitlements

– entitlements changing (large communes to private holdings, also “traditional” communes)

• Herders have some leverage in domestic political-economy to alter rules for tenure

24

Coupled Human-Environment System• Human & natural systems treated more explicitly as coupled

– interactions, feedbacks modeled– give rise to vulnerability by determining exposure, sensitivity and

resilience• Focus shifted from single to multiple, ongoing stresses• Internal as well as external stresses treated• Responses that amplify or dampen vulnerability treated as

endogenous• Investigation at multiple spatial & temporal scales

emphasized, cross-scale interactions

25

Who and What are Vulnerable?

• Different conceptual frameworks, limited information on exposures, sensitivities & resilience, site specific factors hamper synthesis.

• Some general, tentative conclusions– Individuals/livelihoods: Bohle et al (1994), Kelly-

Adger (2000), FAO (1999)– Settlements: Scott et al (2001, IPCC, WG2)– Regions: IPCC, WG2 Summary for Policymakers

26

Vulnerable individuals & livelihoods

• Individuals particularly vulnerable to environmental change are those with– Relatively high exposures to changes– High sensitivities to changes– Low coping and adaptive capacities– Low resilience and recovery potential

27

Vulnerable individuals & livelihoods• Persons w/ livelihoods dependent on primary resources of

variable & fragile productivity– Farming, herding, fishing, hunting/gathering, logging– Indigenous people w/ traditional livelihoods

• Wage laborers in remote areas w/ no direct access to agricultural production.

• Inhabitants of exposed & sensitive places• Poor - lack entitlements needed to cope, adapt, recover• Refugees - often nearly destitute, rely on aid• Disenfranchised - lack ability within political economy to

influence changes in entitlements

28

Groups vulnerable to hunger (FAO, 1999)

• Victims of conflict – refugees, landless, disabled, widows & orphans

• Migrant workers and their families• Marginal groups in urban areas

– School dropouts, new migrants, unemployed, informal sector workers, homeless, . . .

• At-Risk social groups– Indigenous people, minorities, illiterate

• Low income in vulnerable livelihood systems– Subsistence or small scale farming, female headed farm households,

landless peasants, agricultural laborers, . . .• Dependent people living alone

29

Vulnerable Settlements(Scott et al., 2001, IPCC TAR)

• Evaluated vulnerabilities of different settlement types to different climate stresses– Primary resource dependent settlements– Settlements in coastal or riverine floodplains, steep-slopes– Urban vs rural– High vs low capacity to cope and adapt

• Vulnerability rated Low, Moderate, High– Low: impacts barely discernible, easily overcome– Moderate: impacts clearly noticeable but not disruptive, may require

significant expense/difficulty to adapt– High: impacts clearly disruptive, may not be overcome w/ adaptation,

or cost of adaptation itself is disruptive

30

Vulnerable Settlements (Scott et al., 2001, IPCC TAR)

Settlement Type Flooding/Landslides

TropicalCyclones

PrimaryResource

ProductivityL M H L M H L M H

Resource DependentUrban, high capacity xx xx xx xx xx xxUrban, low capacity xx xx xx xx xx xxRural, high capacity xx xx xx xx xx xxRural, low capacity xx xx xx xx xx xx

Coastal-Riverine-SteeplandUrban, high capacity xx xx xx xx xxUrban, low capacity xx xx xx xx xxRural, high capacity xx xx xx xxRural, low capacity xx xx xx xx xx

31

Vulnerable Settlements (Scott et al., 2001, IPCC TAR)

• Vulnerability to flooding/landslides widespread across all settlement types considered

• Resource dependent settlements more vulnerable to changes in productivity of primary resources

• Coastal/steepland settlements more vulnerable to floods, landslides

• Rural more vulnerable than urban• Low capacity more vulnerable than high capacity

32

Vulnerability of regions to climate change (from IPCC, 2001)

• Substantial differences within regions• Developing world highly vulnerable• Developed world generally less vulnerable

– But some marginalized populations highly vulnerable

33

High vulnerability in developing world

• Low levels of human, financial, natural, physical capital• Large number of poor, destitute, compromised health• Limited institutional and technological capabilities• Other stresses taxing capacity to cope, adapt, recover• Climate sensitive primary resource sectors account for large share of

GDP– Larger share of pop. earn livelihoods from these sectors

• Harsher exposures/impacts in some cases– Grain yields more likely to decrease in tropics, subtropics than in

temperate climates– Infectious disease is greater risk at present; more vulnerable to

increases from climate change

34

Africa

• Very low adaptive capacity, high vulnerability• Human-Environment conditions:

– High proportion pop. poor, risk of hunger, low health status – Low HDI, little capital– 1/3 incomes from farming; 70% earn livelihood from farming– High reliance on rainfed ag; highly variable rainfall

• Key concerns– Food security, water availability, infectious disease,

desertification, extreme weather, biodiversity

35

Asia

• Capacity varied, vulnerability varied• Human-Environment conditions

– Wide range development levels; HDI low in south, medium southeast, high some countries

– Large pop. in poverty– 2/3 of world’s undernourished live in Asia

• Key concerns– Extreme weather, changes in monsoon, food security, water

availability, infectious disease, coastal settlements, biodiversity, infrastructure in permafrost zones

36

North America (Canada & US)

• High adaptive capacity, low vulnerability• Human-Environment conditions

– High HDI, high food security, good health status– Some communities/groups vulnerable

• Key concerns– Agricultural productivity, water availability,

ecosystem change/loss, coastal settlements, extreme weather, insurance losses, health