Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-5f56664f6-x5np6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-07T14:18:38.165Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Assessing local vulnerabilities: methodological approaches and regional contexts

from Part IV

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2010

By
Colin Polsky ,
Cynthia Sorrensen ,
Jessica Whitehead  and
Rob Neff
Edited by
Brent Yarnal ,
Colin Polsky  and
James O'Brien
Brent Yarnal
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Colin Polsky
Affiliation:
Clark University, Massachusetts
James O'Brien
Affiliation:
Kingston University, London
Get access

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 Planet
The Human-Environment Regional Observatory Project
 , pp. 155 - 174
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Adger, W. N., 2006. Vulnerability. Global Environmental Change 16: 268–281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adger, W. N., Brooks, N., Bentham, G., Agnew, M., and Eriksen, S., 2004. New Indicators of Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity, Tyndall Centre Technical Report No. 7. Norwich, UK: Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.Google Scholar
Barnes, T., and Gregory, D., 1997. Worlding geography: geography as situated knowledge. In Reading Human Geography: Poetics and Politics of Inquiry, eds. Barnes, T. and Gregory, D., pp. 14–26. London: Arnold Publishers.Google Scholar
Baxter, J., and Eyles, J., 1997. Evaluating qualitative research in social geography: establishing “rigour” in interview anaysis. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 22: 505–525.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Böhle, H.-G., Downing, T. E., and Watts, M., 1994. Climate change and social vulnerability: the sociology and geography of food insecurity. Global Environmental Change 4: 37–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chambers, R., 1983. Rural Development: Putting the Last First. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Chambers, R., 1993. Challenging the Professions: Frontiers for Rural Development. London: ITDG.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, G. E., Moser, S. C., Ratick, S. J., Dow, K., Meyer, W. B., Emani, S., Jin, W., Kasperson, J. X., Kasperson, R. E., and Schwarz, H. E., 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
Creswell, J. W., 2002. Research Design. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Cutter, S., 1996. Vulnerability to environmental hazards. Progress in Human Geography 20: 529–539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dow, K., 1992. Exploring differences in our common future(s): the meaning of vulnerability to global environmental change. Geoforum 23: 417–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downing, T. E., Patwardhan, A., Klein, R. J. T., Mukhala, E., Stephen, L., Winograd, M., and Ziervogel, G., 2003. Vulnerability Assessment for Climate Adaptation, Technical Paper No. 3, Adaptation Policy Framework. Nairobi: United Nations Development Programme.Google Scholar
Eakin, H., and Bojorquez-Tapia, L. A., 2008. Insights into the composition of household vulnerability from multicriteria decision analysis. Global Environmental Change 18: 112–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eakin, H. and Luers, A., 2006. Assessing the vulnerability of social–environmental systems. Annual Review of Environment Resources 31: 365–394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
England, K., 1994. Getting personal: reflexivity, positionality, and feminist research. Professional Geographer 46: 80–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Füssel, H.-M., 2007. Vulnerability: a generally applicable conceptual framework for climate change research. Global Environmental Change 17: 155–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Füssel, H.-M., and Klein, R. J. T., 2006. Climate change vulnerability assessments: an evolution of conceptual thinking. Climatic Change 75: 301–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gragson, T. L., and Grove, J. M., 2006. Social science in the context of the Long Term Ecological Research program. Society and Natural Resources 93: 93–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haberl, H., Winiwarter, V., Andersson, K., Ayres, R. U., Boone, C., Castillo, A., Cunfer, G., Fischer-Kowalski, M., Freudenburg, W. R., Furman, E., Kaufmann, R., Krausmann, F., Langthaler, E., Lotze-Campen, H., Mirtl, M., Redman, C. L., Reenberg, A., Wardell, A., Warr, B., and Zechmeister, H., 2006. From LTER to LTSER: conceptualizing the socioeconomic dimension of long-term socioecological research. Ecology and Society 11(2): 13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
,Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía y Informática (INEGI), 2000. XII Censo General de Población y Vivienda 2000. Municipal data. Accessed at www.inegi.org.mx/inegi/.
,International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), 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.
Kates, R. W., 1985. The interaction of climate and society. In Climate Impact Assessment: Studies of the Interaction of Climate and Society, eds. Kates, R. W., Ausubel, J. H., and Berberian, M., pp. 3–36. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Kelly, P. M., and Adger, W. N., 2000. Theory and practice in assessing vulnerability to climate change and facilitating adaptation. Climatic Change 47: 325–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, G., Keohane, R. O., and Verba, S., 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Klein, R. J. T., and MacIver, D. C., 1999. Adaptation to climate change and variability: methodological issues. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 4(3/4): 189–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leathers, N., and Harrington, L. M. B., 2000. Effectiveness of conservation reserves: ‘slippage’ in southwestern Kansas. Professional Geographer 52(1): 83–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lincoln, Y.S., and Guba, E. G., 1985. Naturalistic Inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Liverman, D., 2001. Vulnerability to global environmental change. In Global Environmental Risk, eds. Kasperson, J. X. and Kasperson, R. E., pp. 201–216. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.Google Scholar
,MASSGIS, 2008. Commonwealth of Massachusetts Office of Geographic and Environmental Information, Boston, Massachusetts. Accessed at www.mass.gov/mgis/massgis.htm.
McCarthy, J. J., Canziani, O. F., Leary, N. A., Dokken, D. J., and White, K. S. (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.
McDowell, L., 1992. “Doing gender”: feminism, feminists and research methods in human geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 17: 399–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moss, R. H., Brenkert, A. L., and Malone, E. L., 2001. Vulnerability to Climate Change: A Quantitative Approach. Richland, WA: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.Google Scholar
,National Research Council (NRC), 1999. Our Common Journey: A Transition Toward Sustainability. Washington, D. C.: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
O'Brien, K., Leichenko, R., Kelkar, U., Venema, H., Nadal, G., Tompkins, H., Javed, A., Bhadwal, S., Barg, S., Nygaard, L., and West, J., 2004. Mapping vulnerability to multiple stressors: climate change and globalization in India. Global Environmental Change 14: 1–11.Google Scholar
Oreskes, N., Shrader-Frechette, K., and Belitz, K., 1994. Verification, validation, and confirmation of numerical models in the Earth sciences, Science 263(5147): 641–646.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
,PA DEP, 2005. Drinking water reporting system: inventory data. Accessed at www.drinkingwater.state.pa.us/dwrs/HTM/DEP_frm.html.
Parry, M. L., Canziani, O. F., Palutikof, J. P., Linden, P. J., and Hanson, C. E. (eds.), 2007. Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Polsky, C., 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
Polsky, C., Neff, R., and Yarnal, B., 2007. Building comparable global change vulnerability assessments: the Vulnerability Scoping Diagram. Global Environmental Change 17: 472–485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rastetter, E., 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
Redman, C. L., Grove, J. M., and Kuby, L. H., 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
Sayre, R., Roca, E., Sedaghatkish, G., Young, B., Keel, S., Roca, R. L., and Sheppard, S., 2000. Nature in Focus: Rapid Ecological Assessment. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.Google Scholar
Schröter, D., Polsky, C., and Patt, A. G., 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
Singleton, R. A., and Straits, B. C., 2005. Approaches to Social Research. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Smit, B., Burton, I., Klein, R. J. T., and Street, R., 1999. The science of adaptation: a framework for assessment. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 4(3/4): 199–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smit, B., Burton, I., Klein, R. J. T., and Wandel, J., 2000. An anatomy of adaptation to climate change and variability. Climatic Change 45(11): 223–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smit, B., Pilifosova, O., Burton, I., Challenger, B., Huq, S., Klein, R. J. T., and Yohe, G., 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. McCarthy, J. J.et al., pp. 877–912. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Strauss, A., and Corbin, J., 1998. Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Turner, B. L. II, Kasperson, R. E., Matsone, P. A., McCarthy, J. J., Corell, R. W., Christensen, L., Eckley, N., Kasperson, J. X., Luerse, A., Martello, M. L., Polsky, C., Pulsipher, A., and Schiller, A., 2003. A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 100: 8074–8079.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
,United States Census Bureau, 1997. American FactFinder, 1997 Economic Census. Accessed at http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?_program=ECN&_tabId=ECN2&_submenuId=datasets_4&_lang=en&_ts=168466624781.
,United States Census Bureau, 2004. 2004 American Community Survey. Accessed at http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?_program=ACS&_submenuId=datasets_2&_lang=en&_ts=.
,United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service (USDA ERS), 2006. State Fact Sheets: Kansas. Accessed at www.ers.usda.gov/statefacts/KS.htm.
,United States Department of Agriculture, National Agriculture Statistics Service, 2002. Census of Agriculture. Accessed at www.nass.usda.gov/Census_of_Agriculture/.
Wilbanks, T. L., Kane, S. M., Leiby, P. N., Perlack, R. D., Settle, C., Shogren, J. F., and Smith, J. B.. 2003. Integrating mitigation and adaptation. Environment 45(5): 28–39.Google Scholar
Wu, S.-Y., Yarnal, B., and Fisher, A., 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
Yohe, G., and Tol, R. S. J., 2002. Indicators for social and economic coping capacity: moving toward a working definition of adaptive capacity. Global Environmental Change 12: 25–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×