Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
From recent research into how adaptation takes place in general, it would appear
that vulnerability can be reduced through adaptation. People and systems are not
passive to the risks they face and adaptation is indeed the norm. If we look at risks
associated with climate change, such as fl ood risk, property and livelihoods due to
coastal loss of land, planned adaptation is initiated because the benefi ts generally
outweigh the costs (Adger et al., 2007). But, as we have illustrated in this chapter,
adaptation often does not occur because of the unevenness of adaptive capacity and
the persistence of various barriers to action. For risks such as exposure of elderly
people to increasing heatwaves and extreme heat, which caused more than 30,000
excess deaths in Europe in 2003, vulnerabilities persist despite clear knowledge of
the risks and recognition of the cognitive and economic barriers to addressing
them.
The key message of this chapter is that vulnerability and resilience are important
characteristics of places, people and combined social-ecological systems. Vulnera-
bilities are usually defi ned in terms of perturbations and changes outside the control
of localities, and hence, usually portrayed as a negative state and something to be
avoided. Resilience, deriving from the ecological sciences, involves the ability to
retain system function and essential character. In some ways, it is the fl ip side or
antonym to vulnerability. These concepts are embedded in distinct research tradi-
tions, but they are converging over time towards a common agenda that recognises
the place-specifi c nature of resilient communities, the range of scales that vulnerabil-
ity and resilience can be assessed, and the need to understand the winners and losers
from interventions and adaptations that seek to promote resilience and the capacity
to adapt.
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