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cats and possibly raccoon dogs. Bell et al. (2004) suggest that it is the trade in wild
animals, wrecking havoc with local biodiversity in South East Asia, that causes the
risk and vulnerability in the fi rst place.
Vulnerabilities to SARS are therefore connected with other vulnerabilities through
markets and demographic changes and through biological feedbacks and linkages.
Wildlife trade networks spread not only the risk, but also cause localised biodiver-
sity loss, as new species are exploited and others become scarce. In this way SARS
illustrates the mechanisms that communicate human exposure to disease as well as
the nested nature of global environmental change. Thus, the economic changes
associated with increasing incomes and changing consumption patterns combine
with land use and environmental change to create the conditions for populations
to be vulnerable to emerging diseases (Adger et al., 2009). Globalisation of travel
and economic linkages in this case spread vulnerability of susceptible populations
across the globe and created a global public health crisis.
In summary, the resilience of social-ecological systems is challenged by several
trends in the modern world including rising connectedness of places, declining
diversity of function and even of species in natural and managed landscapes (Young
et al., 2006). It is also challenged by the so-called spatial stretching of systems
of governance to deal with ever more complex issues such as ocean acidifi cation,
fi sheries exploitation and climate change.
Conclusions
This chapter has outlined the concepts of vulnerability and resilience, pointed to
their origins in the social and natural sciences, and showed how they are infl uenced
by geographical factors and observed at various scales. Vulnerability and resilience
have evolved from different disciplines and research traditions. Vulnerability, from
its beginnings, in geography, risk and hazards research, has had a strong focus on
economic and political structures as causes of social vulnerability. Resilience, derived
from ecological sciences, is based on complex systems studies with a focus on adap-
tive capacity and maintaining the ability to deal with future, uncertain change. A
resilience framework provides a dynamic perspective on processes of change within
social and natural systems and the effects of these processes at different spatial and
temporal scales.
Observations of how societies cope with hazards and with underlying risks
show that some elements of society are inherently vulnerable and others are inher-
ently resilient. This chapter highlights two important geographical aspects to this
story. First, the scale at which vulnerability and resilience are observed matters.
Global interdependencies and movement of people, resources and capital mean
that vulnerabilities to change in one place are often linked to unforeseen conse-
quences elsewhere. Second, the elements of where people reside and what they
are vulnerable to are intimately bound up with the places that are valuable to
people.
Of course, resilience and vulnerability to environmental change are neither static
nor passive states. People and biological organisms adapt to changing conditions in
order to make themselves less vulnerable to unforeseen or uncontrollable perturba-
tions or changes. Adaptation by people is categorically different to adaptation in
biological systems in that it can involve signifi cant foresight, and hence, people
adapt in anticipation or in expectation of change.
