Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Part I
- Part II
- Part III
- Part IV
- 8 Assessing local vulnerabilities: methodological approaches and regional contexts
- 9 Rapid Vulnerability Assessments of exposures, sensitivities, and adaptive capacities of the HERO study sites
- 10 Evaluating vulnerability assessments of the HERO study sites
- Part V
- Part VI
- Index
- References
8 - Assessing local vulnerabilities: methodological approaches and regional contexts
from Part IV
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Part I
- Part II
- Part III
- Part IV
- 8 Assessing local vulnerabilities: methodological approaches and regional contexts
- 9 Rapid Vulnerability Assessments of exposures, sensitivities, and adaptive capacities of the HERO study sites
- 10 Evaluating vulnerability assessments of the HERO study sites
- Part V
- Part VI
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
The global change literature has experienced a significant, growing interest in vulnerability since the early 1990s. Although a host of authors have provided overarching conceptual discussions of vulnerability, they have largely ignored methodological issues. Consequently, several papers have recently addressed the topic of operationalizing vulnerability. Despite this growing number of vulnerability studies privileging methodology, we are unaware of published papers tackling the challenge of how to conduct a coordinated vulnerability assessment in multiple places. The HERO project, with this chapter, responds to that gap in the literature.
By addressing the topic of replicable protocols, the HERO project seeks to advance the science of vulnerability. Coupled human–environment systems are dynamic, which means that the vulnerability estimated at one point in time or space may not be a faithful predictor of vulnerability at a later point in time or another point in space. Therefore, as argued elsewhere in similar contexts (e.g., Chapter 5 of this volume; Redman et al. 2004; Gragson and Grove 2006; Haberl et al. 2006; Polsky et al. 2007), replicable protocols must be consistently applied to vulnerability assessments over time and space to develop a database sufficiently sensitive to distinguish trends from anomalies. Thus, HERO is aiming to contribute to a larger discussion on scientific infrastructure development (see Chapters 1, 3, and 5).
In the remainder of this chapter, we first elaborate on methodological issues associated with conducting vulnerability assessments in the context of a multi-site network.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Sustainable Communities on a Sustainable PlanetThe Human-Environment Regional Observatory Project, pp. 155 - 174Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
References
, , , , and , 2004. New Indicators of Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity, Tyndall Centre Technical Report No. 7. Norwich, UK: Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.Google Scholar
, and , 1997. Worlding geography: geography as situated knowledge. In Reading Human Geography: Poetics and Politics of Inquiry, eds. and , pp. 14–26. London: Arnold Publishers.Google Scholar
, and , 1997. Evaluating qualitative research in social geography: establishing “rigour” in interview anaysis. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 22: 505–525.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and , 1994. Climate change and social vulnerability: the sociology and geography of food insecurity. Global Environmental Change 4: 37–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, 1993. Challenging the Professions: Frontiers for Rural Development. London: ITDG.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , , , , , , , and , 1998. Assessing the vulnerability of coastal communities to extreme storms: the case of Revere, MA, USA. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 3: 59–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, 1996. Vulnerability to environmental hazards. Progress in Human Geography 20: 529–539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, 1992. Exploring differences in our common future(s): the meaning of vulnerability to global environmental change. Geoforum 23: 417–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , , , , and , 2003. Vulnerability Assessment for Climate Adaptation, Technical Paper No. 3, Adaptation Policy Framework. Nairobi: United Nations Development Programme.Google Scholar
, and , 2008. Insights into the composition of household vulnerability from multicriteria decision analysis. Global Environmental Change 18: 112–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , 2006. Assessing the vulnerability of social–environmental systems. Annual Review of Environment Resources 31: 365–394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, 1994. Getting personal: reflexivity, positionality, and feminist research. Professional Geographer 46: 80–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, 2007. Vulnerability: a generally applicable conceptual framework for climate change research. Global Environmental Change 17: 155–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and , 2006. Climate change vulnerability assessments: an evolution of conceptual thinking. Climatic Change 75: 301–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and , 2006. Social science in the context of the Long Term Ecological Research program. Society and Natural Resources 93: 93–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and , 2006. From LTER to LTSER: conceptualizing the socioeconomic dimension of long-term socioecological research. Ecology and Society 11(2): 13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, 2000. XII Censo General de Población y Vivienda 2000. Municipal data. Accessed at www.inegi.org.mx/inegi/.
, 2008. Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA): Participatory Research for Sustainable Livelihoods – A Guide for Field Projects on Adaptive Strategies. Accessed at www.iisd.org/casl/caslguide/rapidruralappraisal.htm.
, 1985. The interaction of climate and society. In Climate Impact Assessment: Studies of the Interaction of Climate and Society, eds. , , and , pp. 3–36. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
, and , 2000. Theory and practice in assessing vulnerability to climate change and facilitating adaptation. Climatic Change 47: 325–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and , 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
, and , 1999. Adaptation to climate change and variability: methodological issues. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 4(3/4): 189–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and , 2000. Effectiveness of conservation reserves: ‘slippage’ in southwestern Kansas. Professional Geographer 52(1): 83–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, 2001. Vulnerability to global environmental change. In Global Environmental Risk, eds. and , pp. 201–216. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.Google Scholar
, 2008. Commonwealth of Massachusetts Office of Geographic and Environmental Information, Boston, Massachusetts. Accessed at www.mass.gov/mgis/massgis.htm.
, , , , and (eds.) 2001. Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation & Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
, 1992. “Doing gender”: feminism, feminists and research methods in human geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 17: 399–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and , 2001. Vulnerability to Climate Change: A Quantitative Approach. Richland, WA: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.Google Scholar
, 1999. Our Common Journey: A Transition Toward Sustainability. Washington, D. C.: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
, , , , , , , , , , and , 2004. Mapping vulnerability to multiple stressors: climate change and globalization in India. Global Environmental Change 14: 1–11.Google Scholar
, , and , 1994. Verification, validation, and confirmation of numerical models in the Earth sciences, Science 263(5147): 641–646.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, 2005. Drinking water reporting system: inventory data. Accessed at www.drinkingwater.state.pa.us/dwrs/HTM/DEP_frm.html.
, , , , and (eds.), 2007. Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
, 2004. Putting space and time in Ricardian climate change impact studies: agriculture in the U.S. Great Plains, 1969–1992. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 94: 549–564.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and , 2007. Building comparable global change vulnerability assessments: the Vulnerability Scoping Diagram. Global Environmental Change 17: 472–485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, 1996. Validating models of ecosystem response to global change: how can we best assess models of long-term global change?BioScience 46(3): 190–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and , 2004. Integrating social science into the long-term ecological research (LTER) network: social dimensions of ecological change and ecological dimensions of social change. Ecosystems 7: 161–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , , , , and , 2000. Nature in Focus: Rapid Ecological Assessment. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.Google Scholar
, , and , 2005. Assessing vulnerabilities to the effects of global change: an eight step approach. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 10: 573–596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , and , 1999. The science of adaptation: a framework for assessment. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 4(3/4): 199–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , and , 2000. An anatomy of adaptation to climate change and variability. Climatic Change 45(11): 223–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , , , , and , 2001. Adaptation to climate change in the context of sustainable development and equity. In Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability – Contribution of Working Group II to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, eds. et al., pp. 877–912. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
, and , 1998. Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
II, , , , , , , , , , , , and , 2003. A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 100: 8074–8079.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
. American FactFinder, 1997 Economic Census. Accessed at http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?_program=ECN&_tabId=ECN2&_submenuId=datasets_4&_lang=en&_ts=168466624781.
. 2004 American Community Survey. Accessed at http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?_program=ACS&_submenuId=datasets_2&_lang=en&_ts=.
, 2006. State Fact Sheets: Kansas. Accessed at www.ers.usda.gov/statefacts/KS.htm.
, 2002. Census of Agriculture. Accessed at www.nass.usda.gov/Census_of_Agriculture/.
, , , , , , and . 2003. Integrating mitigation and adaptation. Environment 45(5): 28–39.Google Scholar
, , and , 2002. Vulnerability of coastal communities to sea-level rise: a case study of Cape May County, New Jersey. Climate Research 22: 255–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and , 2002. Indicators for social and economic coping capacity: moving toward a working definition of adaptive capacity. Global Environmental Change 12: 25–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar