End-point vulnerability: biophysical vulnerability

Vulnerability is frequently interpreted in climate research and policy as the net impacts of climate change remaining after adaptation has taken place. This can be represented as follows (after McFadden et al., 2007: 3):

Vulnerability = Impact – effects of Adaptation (V = I – A)

This interpretation is reflected in definitions of vulnerability such as the following:

… the vulnerability of a given entity … with respect to Global Change may…be defined as the expected damage as resulting from the expected environmental perturbations in view of the expected transformation and adaptation processes (Corell et al., 2001, in Thywissen, 2006: 479).

Vulnerability is an end-point insofar as the ultimate impact or outcome of a climate hazard, after adaptation has taken place is the point of concern. In an impacts-led approach to adaptation, vulnerability is considered to be the

‘residual’ consequences remaining after adaptation measures have taken place

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(Kelly and Adger, 2000; O’Brien et al. 2004; Smit and Wandel, 2006). This interpretation represents a strong scientific framework for understanding climate change vulnerability, impacts and adaptation.

For instance, Hay et al. (2003: 28) outline a systematic framework of vulnerability assessment for the Pacific Islands, to “characterize any residual adverse impacts”, following the identification of impacts and adaptation efforts. This is depicted in Figure 3.

Vulnerability can be measured as the residual cost, or impact, remaining after the seven step impacts assessment process has been applied (Carter et al., 1994;

Parry and Carter, 1998). As such, vulnerability is often framed in terms of measurable ‘cost’ indicators, where these may for example, be direct monetary costs, ecosystem losses, or human mortality. Vulnerability, therefore, is frequently interpreted as the net cost of climate change, whether this be

Figure 3 Framework for studies culminating in an assessment of vulnerability and adaptations to climate change, adapted from Hay et al. (2003: 28)

Scenarios:

Climate

Socio-economic

Study areas:

Physical hazard Exposure

Impact assessment Sensitivity

Adaptation assessment Adaptive capacity

Vulnerability assessment Residual risks

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monetary, or other types of loss such as human life or property (Cutter, 1996;

Alexander, 1993).

Importantly, as vulnerability is determined by exposure characteristics, responding to vulnerability requires modifying the conditions determining this exposure to reduce impact. Adaptation commonly involves technological measures – identified as ‘fixes’ by Eriksen and Kelly (2007: 505) – to minimise projected biophysical impacts, or “non-structural” measures such as moving people away from hazardous areas (Alexander, 1993). Examples are drought resistant seeds or infrastructure changes adjusted to projected changes in climate parameters (Eriksen and Kelly, 2007). These types of measures are commonly involved in the emerging adaptation ‘mainstreaming’ approach of

‘climate proof’ development, which involves reducing the risks to development projects or assets through adjusting activities and deliverables to account for projected climate impacts (Klein et al., 2007)¹¹. Despite varying use of this popular term, a ‘climate proofing’ approach typically adheres to the vulnerability-adaptation relationship interpretation portrayed in ‘a’ in Section 2.3 above, where ‘adaptation’ is something additional to development that is done to reduce vulnerability (e.g. Kabat, et al., 2005). For example, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) developed an approach for climate proof development in the Pacific, to assist member states to adapt to climate change. Vulnerability is defined as:

The extent to which a natural or human system is susceptible to sustaining damage resulting from climate variability and change, despite human actions to moderate or offset such damage (ADB, 2005: xiv).

11 Although Schipper (2007) refers to climate proofing in a wider sense to indicate ‘climate aware’

development practice that can potentially reduce vulnerability, climate proofing is more commonly associated with adjustments to development deliverables according to projections of changes in climate parameters – thus adhering to a broad impacts-led approach.

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O’Brien et al. (2004: 5) identify that under an end-point interpretation such as this, typically “what emerges is a list of activities that need to be funded:

irrigation schemes, drought tolerant seed varieties, raised bridges, structural improvements in housing, and so forth”. Process-based activities such as land use planning, emergency planning, and disaster relief and rehabilitation, can be added to this list (Alexander, 1993).

2.3.1.1 Exposure

This interpretation focuses primarily on exposure to physical climate hazards rather than on the ability of human systems to cope with physical hazard itself (Brooks, 2003). This interpretation of vulnerability therefore employs an

“exposure model” (Cutter, et al., 2003: 242), meaning it is determined by a physical hazard, the extent of human exposure to the hazard, and sensitivity of a system to the impacts (Brooks, 2003). The emphasis is on the characteristics of the climate stimuli and the way they interact with the human system or biophysical systems that humans occupy.

Exposure is determined by a) the “magnitude, duration, impact, frequency and rapidity of onset” of the physical hazard and its probability of occurrence (Cutter, 1996: 532), b) the location and intensity of human activity or phenomena, and c)

“the degree to which a system is modified or affected by perturbations” or its degree of sensitivity (Adger, 2006: 270). As stated by Smit and Wandel (2006),

“exposure and sensitivity are almost inseparable properties of a system … and are dependent on the interaction between the characteristics of the system and on the attributes of the climate stimulus”. In an end-point interpretation, vulnerability is inherently climate stimulus-specific or “specific to perturbations that impinge on the system” (Gallopin, 2006: 294). Accordingly, vulnerability is pinned to climate stimuli and their ‘first order’ or biophysical impacts (Brooks, 2003).

From this perspective, the geography of vulnerability is determined by the human occupancy of biophysical environments susceptible to hazards of a high

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magnitude and frequency: “The most vulnerable people are considered to be those living in the most precarious physical environments” (Liverman, 1990: 29).

From this perspective, a precise definition of the nature of the physical hazard is necessary to determine vulnerability (Kelly and Adger, 2000). As identified by Fussel (2007), the root causes are climate change stimuli and these are the primary focus of adaptive actions. Brooks (2003) considers that biophysical interpretations downplay the role of human systems in mediating the outcomes of physical hazard events, insofar as the ability of people to cope with events once they occur is de-emphasized.

2.3.1.2 Human ecology and the natural hazards paradigm

The end-point interpretation of vulnerability, as applied in the climate change field, grew from the natural hazards research paradigm that emerged in geography in the 1960’s and 1970’s (Adger, 2006; Janssen et al., 2006; Gaillard, 2010). This is underpinned by human ecology. Also referred to as the ‘risk-hazard’ framework (Fussel, 2005; 2007) this paradigm emphasizes the characteristics of physical stimuli and their interactions with human behaviour as the cause of vulnerability (Anderson, 2000; Heijmans, 2004). This view of vulnerability as a predominantly biophysical condition in relation to climate change has arisen largely from these interpretations within the natural hazards tradition (Fussel, 2007; Cutter, 1996; Brooks, 2003).

The influence of human ecology was fundamental to the shift in natural hazards research from a pure ‘nature as cause’ approach to a behavioral approach, pioneered by Gilbert White (1945) in the disasters research field. The behaviorists such as White (1945) and later, Burton and Kates (1964), Kates (1971) and Burton et al., (1978), “…concentrated their efforts on understanding the ways in which individuals and groups responded to disaster events” (Pelling, 2003b: 9), placing greater emphasis on the human dimensions of exposure in the natural hazards field, insofar as this included social perceptions of risk and behavioral adjustments such as land use planning (Watts, 1983; Anderson, 2000;

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Mustafa, 2002; Handmer, 2003). Pre-dating natural hazards research, disasters were viewed as something to be engineered away or addressed by civil defense.

According to the Dictionary of Human Geography (Johnston et al., 2000: 352),

“human ecology studies the relationships between people and their social and physical environments”. The most notable contribution of the human ecological perspective in the natural hazards field is the explicit emphasis given to the interactions between human-environment systems as creating hazard. Turner and Robbins (2008: 297) specify that human ecology is: “either societal adjustment to the environment, largely applied to natural hazards, or the interaction of human culture with the environment”.

From a human ecological perspective, rather than solely attributing the geography of hazard to the spatial distribution and frequencies of geophysical extremes, it is also a function of ‘human-use systems’ (Burton et al., 1978). The way in which humans use and/or change the physical environment causes vulnerability, as portrayed in Figure 4.

Natural Events System

Resources

Human Use System

Hazards Response

Figure 4 the physical and human dimensions of natural hazard and disaster, from Burton et al.

(1978).

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This recognizes, for instance, that a flood is not merely a consequence of increased storm frequency, but of decisions to use flood prone places (Smith, 1996). Addressing this therefore, involves not only engineering measures such as stop-banks, but land use planning and zoning initiatives: “Responding to those hazards, society may seek to modify the natural events system … and the human use system of locations, livelihoods and social organization” (Burton et al., 1978:

20).

Human ecology and natural hazards research makes the first step towards recognizing the “strategic import of social causality” (Watts, 1983: 240) in disaster. However, they do not generally recognize or address the “political and structural causes of vulnerability within society” (Adger, 2006: 271). Human use and/or modification of nature are the focus and vulnerability is a function of exposure to physical stimuli and biophysical impacts. Human ecology can be said to have acted as a springboard for later ‘starting-point vulnerability’

interpretations within the climate change field which stem from the vulnerability paradigm in natural hazards research (Gaillard, 2010) – a political ecology perspective (see Section 2.4 below). Impacts-led adaptation is based in a human ecology perspective.