New indicators of vulnerability and adaptive capacity

NON TECHNICAL SUMMARY There is an increasing need to develop indicators of vulnerability and of adaptive capacity both to determine the robustness of response strategies over time and to understand better the underlying processes. The climate change policy process has increasingly focussed on the potential for adaptation. National level indicators of vulnerability or adaptive capacity directed towards the allocation of resources to support financial mechanisms of the UNFCCC, for example, will only find acceptance if based on agreed criteria that are transparent and robust. In this project we find that it is possible to compare the vulnerability of people and places across time and space at different scales. It is less meaningful to aggregate vulnerability across scales since the processes that cause vulnerability are different at each scale. We have explored issues of aggregation and construction of indices, weighting of indicators, and the efficacy of these to explain observed vulnerability to weather-related natural disasters. We are now in a better position to identify robust and transparent indicator sets. We find that national level adaptive capacity is dependent on social infrastructure and the accountability of institutions more than on the level of economic activity. OBJECTIVES The goals of the project have been: • to operationalise a database on quantitative socioeconomic indicators of vulnerability to climate change, classified by particular categories of climate impact; • to address two processes which shape vulnerability that we consider to have been inadequately studied in previous work: health status and social capital; • to address the relationship between the indicators and theoretical models of adaptation relevant for incorporation into global integrated assessment models; and, • to seek co-funding for expansion of the health and other components of the work. WORK UNDERTAKEN AND RESULTS The first element of this project was the development of a conceptual framework within which indicators representing vulnerability and adaptive capacity could be developed. The conceptual framework was developed through a combination of literature review, attendance at meetings of practitioners in the field of vulnerability, adaptation and natural hazards, and discussions with key individuals. There are different views and definitions of vulnerability. This issue was addressed by combining the approaches of the climate change and natural hazards research communities, and developing a framework which related risk, vulnerability and adaptive capacity to one another, and which also addressed the issue of timescale. The conceptual framework relates the concepts of vulnerability, risk and adaptive capacity …