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Concepts and Definitions
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and others point to the importance of building adaptive capacity and resilience in order to respond to the uncertainties and systemic changes anticipated as a consequence of climate shifts. What do these terms mean? The Resilience Alliance, a global network of scientists working on adaptation and systems dynamics provides detailed discussions regarding these concepts on their web site at www.resalliance.org. Although we largely follow their definitions, in a practical sense how do we apply these concepts to development situations? We start with key indicators.
Development Indicators: In most contexts, development indicators focus on factors that relate to well being, economic productivity and the environmental sustainability of the resource base populations depend on for their livelihoods. Indicators typically include: poverty levels, access to basic services (water, health care, etc.), economic productivity, income distribution, educational levels, and so on. These indicators often vary on the basis of gender, caste, community or other subgroups within regions
Adaptive Capacity: In development contexts, adaptive capacity refers to the ability of socioeconomic, institutional and cultural systems to adjust to external disturbances such as those we are concerned with in our program, i.e. climate change, natural disasters or degradation in the water resource base. More generically, it also refers to the ability of such systems to adjust to other forms of disturbance, such as economic fluctuations, that are beyond the scope of our program. Socioeconomic, institutional and cultural systems with high levels of adaptive capacity are able to reconfigure themselves in response to disturbances without sustained declines in development indicators. Systems with lower levels of adaptive capacity experience long-term declines in some or all of these key development indicators when subject to disruption.
The above description of adaptive capacity in development contexts is very similar to the description used by the Resilience Alliance. According to the Resilience Alliance: “Systems with high adaptive capacity are able to re-configure themselves without significant declines in crucial functions in relation to primary productivity, hydrological cycles, social relations and economic prosperity.” (http://www.resalliance.org/565.php)
Adaptation and Coping: The process of adaptation involves changes (either fundamental or incremental) in livelihood and other systems that enable, at a minimum, maintenance of the pre-disruption status of development indicators. Coping focuses more on survival regardless of changes in development indicators.
The difference between adaptation and coping is a core feature in the concepts we use. Systems are well adapted to their context when they score high in relation to development indicators and are able to absorb “normal” disturbances (in the climate case, storms, floods and droughts that fall within historical norms) without sustained declines in such indicators. Such systems are fundamentally different from those that are able to “cope” with disturbance. Coping implies survival but with substantial losses in development indicators either for the region as a whole or for sub-groups within it. Much of the literature on coping strategies focuses on techniques (such as reductions in food intake and sale of assets) that, while they may allow populations to survive, leave them impoverished following a disaster event. For well adapted systems, events that could cause disaster, such as a major flood, represent relatively minor disruptions and do not cause sustained declines in key development indicators.
Resilience: According to the Resilience Alliance, resilience is: “the ability to absorb disturbances, to be changed and then to re-organize and still have the same identity (retain the same basic structure and ways of functioning). It includes the ability to learn from the disturbance. A resilient system is forgiving of external shocks. As resilience declines the magnitude of a shock from which it cannot recover gets smaller and smaller.” (http://www.resalliance.org/564.php)
It is important to recognize that our definition of resilience does not imply rigidity. In the case of water resource systems, for example, the term resilience is often used to imply hardening or expanding of physical control structures so that they are able to withstand greater extremes. While such structures can achieve such objectives, if design standards are exceeded they generally fail catastrophically. They are not flexible or able to re-organise following a shock that exceeds engineering parameters. In contrast, systems for living with water through regional planning approaches that “leave space” for floods to occur are often far more flexible and are not subject to catastrophic failure. As a result, they would tend to match our definition of resilience far more closely than those relying on hardened physical structures.
We refer to planned adaptation as the ability of key actors to identify emerging hazards and take proactive steps to change policies, implement projects, establish warning systems or take other forms of action to reduce the anticipated impacts of climate change. In the current literature on climate change, the wide array of targeted projects for early warning, drought mitigation, flood management and so on would all fall under the umbrella of proactive adaptation.
Autonomous adaptation, in contrast, is the adjustment or reshaping of livelihood and other systems by numerous dispersed entities in ways that, while they are not proactively planned by key actors, do serve to reduce risks or the impact of climate change. In many cases, responses to climate change through autonomous adaptation represent emergent, unplanned, characteristics of systems. Economic diversification, for example, often occurs as a consequence of many factors operating within local societies (changes in trade, demographics, transport, communication, etc…). Diversification has been identified and a major factor reducing the risks associated with climatic variability and change – but it is generally not a directly planned response to specific climate related hazards. Instead, risk reduction is a property that emerges in an unplanned manner as individuals, companies and other entities identify opportunities and respond to a wide variety of risks or constraints.
Conceptually the difference between planned and autonomous adaptation is likely to become blurred as experience is gained in programs to support adaptation to climate change. At present, most interventions proposed to support adaptation to climate change (particularly those outlined in the National Adaptation Plans of Action – NAPAs – that have been prepared by a few countries) involve projects targeted to address specific climate risks. They involve, for example, drought proofing, development of drought resistant crops, development of flood warning systems and so on. Such interventions fall clearly into the “planned adaptation” rubric.
The above said, if experience continues to indicate that resilience and adaptive capacity are emergent features of diversified economic systems, then interventions to support diversification are likely to play an increasing role in planned adaptation strategies. Many of the interventions that could encourage diversification, such as improvements in transport or education, are at best distantly related to any specific climate change impact. Instead, such interventions would be designed to build the adaptive capacity of systems and, through that, support the emergence of livelihood or other system characteristics that improve the ability of populations to change livelihood systems in ways that reduce the impacts of climate change.
Disaster Risk Reduction: Our focus is on natural hazards, particularly extreme events. In this context, we define “disaster risk reduction” as any set of direct or indirect interventions that functionally reduce the vulnerability of individuals, households, communities, businesses, economic and livelihood systems, regions and other entities to severe disruption when extreme events occur. As with responses to climate change, disaster risk reduction can occur either through planned interventions or autonomously as an emergent characteristic of landuse, infrastructure and livelihood systems.
Planned interventions to reduce disaster risk include a wide variety of activities from the design of physical infrastructure to the development of “hazard awareness” in vulnerable populations. Such interventions are typically targeted in relation to specific populations identified as vulnerable and toward specific hazards.
Autonomous and emergent forms of risk reduction refer to the characteristics of regions or systems that, while generally not specifically designed to reduce hazard risks, do increase the ability of vulnerable populations to deal well with such risks. The importance of such emergent features in relation to hazards is clearly evident in most disaster situations. In the Nepal Terai, for example, research has documented that populations with access to a diverse array of organizations (government, non-government, business, etc…) are able to access diverse sources of support during flood periods while those lacking access to diverse organizations aren’t. None of the organizations in the first location were initially developed to support flood relief -- but their mere existence provided a nucleus for organization and response when needed. Institutional diversity can, as a result, be seen as an emergent characteristic of systems that may, in a generic manner, contribute to disaster risk reduction. Similar examples exist in relation to social networks, communication and transport systems and infrastructure.
As with climate change, most strategies for disaster risk reduction currently focus on specific interventions designed to reduce the vulnerability of specific target groups. Changes in behavior that emerge autonomously (i.e. in an unplanned manner as populations respond to risk) along with the emergent characteristics of systems, such as diversification may, however, play a much greater role in determining vulnerability than interventions targeted to reduce vulnerability.
Vulnerability: Our use of the term “vulnerability” is intended to reflect both physical exposure to hazards and the complex web of interconnected economic, political, cultural and institutional factors that create social vulnerability. The multiple dimensions of vulnerability discussed extensively in the growing literature on the topic, summarized briefly below.
There are multiple definitions of vulnerability in existence in the hazards and disasters literature. Definitions of vulnerability are often divided into terms of social vulnerability and physical vulnerability. Physical vulnerability refers to the built environment (lifelines, such as water or electricity), the capability of structures to withstand the energy loads associated with extreme events while protecting the occupants, and the location of structures (CDRSS, 2006). Weisner et al. (2004) defined social vulnerability as “the characteristics of a person or group and their situation that influence their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact of a natural hazard.” Adger (1999: 249) further describes social vulnerability as “the exposure of groups or individuals to stress as a result of social and environmental change, where stress refers to unexpected changes and disruption to livelihoods.” Adger's definition explicitly incorporates environmental change as a factor in social vulnerability that is not necessarily discussed in other definitions of social vulnerability.
All of these concepts of vulnerability recognize that it is a dynamic condition dependent on multiple factors and that the degree of vulnerability can change. As physical conditions or social conditions change, an individual or group or structure might become more or less vulnerable. Physical and social vulnerability are inexorably linked. The degree to which the built environment can withstand disruptions caused by natural disasters is determined by human decisions to build in certain areas, the types of materials used, and by policies governing construction and placement of infrastructure. The factors giving rise to physical vulnerability depend on the ability of certain groups to anticipate disasters and cope with the potential outcomes of a hazard event.
Social vulnerability is constructed, dependent on a number of factors including: usage and access rights to natural resources, access to political power and representation (Mustafa, 2002, as cited in CDRSS, 2006: 73), cultural constructions surrounding gender, age, beliefs and norms, and physical vulnerability, among others. The intersect between social and physical vulnerability and the degree of vulnerability is clearly reflected in living location. For instance, because of recreational and aesthetic opportunities, a wealthy individual might choose to construct a house on a beach front, thus exposing him or herself to tidal surges, hurricanes, and extreme winds. However, because of financial resources and the ability to construct a more durable house or relocate, such an individual cannot be considered as vulnerable as a poor individual living in a coastal fishing village out of livelihood necessity.
Furthermore, certain characteristics such as age, gender, race and class, are strongly associated with social vulnerability. Disaster researchers have noted that women and children, in many situations, tend to have more of a reduced capability to cope with and respond to extreme events. The gendered differences in vulnerability are often due to “differences in socioeconomic status, domestic responsibilities and power, access to and control over resources such as land ownership and community organizations, and the intersection of gender with age, health, and safety” (Enarson and Morrow, 1998, p. 53). In social structures where women are not allowed to own property, have little economic independence, or are illiterate, such women are less likely to be able to cope with extreme events or have the means to recover after an event has occurred.
However, disaster researchers are beginning to recognize that labeling a population as being vulnerable without considering that population's capabilities, might lead to misidentification of needs and points of vulnerability reduction. Describing people as vulnerable without assessing their capacity to cope with extreme events is to label people as passive victims. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations have adopted capacity and vulnerability (VCA) frameworks in which a full assessment of disaster risk and capabilities are done. There are multiple VCA methodologies, all of which aim to identify vulnerable groups or individuals. Davis et al. (2004) describe the goal of VCA as:
“to identify specific vulnerable groups/individuals, based on key social characteristics such as gender, age, health status, disability, ethnicity and so forth. The process also includes an analysis of patterns of density, livelihood security and occupational activities that increase the vulnerability of certain households and communities. Capacity assessment aims at identifying a wide diversity of resources: community coping strategies, local leadership and institutions, existing social capital which may contribute to risk reduction efforts, skills, labour, community facilities, preparedness stocks, a local evacuation plan, etc.” (p. 3)
Thus, VCA methodologies are emerging as more comprehensive approaches for assessing vulnerability and determining the capabilities of various groups and individuals to cope with, respond and recover from disasters.
Vulnerability References:
Adger, W.N. (1999), Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and Extremes in Coastal
Committee on Disaster Research in the Social Sciences: Future Challenges and Opportunities (2006), Facing Hazards and Disasters: Understanding Human Dimensions,
Enarson, E. and B.H. Morrow (Eds.), (1998), The Gendered Terrain of Disaster,
Wisner, B., P. Blaikie, T. Cannon and I. Davis (2004), At Risk: Natural hazards, people's vulnerability and disasters (2nd ed.),
Financial Mechanisms- Bridging planned and autonomous risk management: In regions where insurance systems are well developed and play a major role in the financial environment, they can serve as a link between planned and autonomously (or behaviorally) driven forms of disaster risk management. In most cases, insurance is seen as a mechanism to pool or spread risk. It can, however, be used as a mechanism to manage landuse and the vulnerability of investments in relation to natural hazards.
In Europe and the
