Arctic environmental security and abrupt climate change - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 103

is modified by the level of 'vulnerability', meaning the extent to which the
effects of hazards can be mitigated and withstood. In such a construction,
however, the hazard becomes something external to the group in question, a
force to be withstood rather than part of the complex, adaptive capacity of the
population. Rather than make such vulnerability an external modifier of risk,
for purposes of clarity we define this variable instead as sensitivity, the second
component of vulnerability.
Sensitivity is the degree to which a group is affected by the occurrence of a
hazard, or how far from a baseline livelihood one is pushed. Sensitivity can be a
result of particular geography, such as a community placed on sandy hillsides
where landslides are common, and it may be affected by factors such as physi-
cal characteristics, cultural practices, age or past negative pressures. Climate
changes can interact with sensitivity measures along multiple pathways, and
can create situations of positive feedback loops that create even greater vulner-
ability. Certain groups, for reasons of geography, age, livelihood or cultural
practices, can be much more sensitive to environmental changes. The degree
of exposure to climate changes alone cannot be used to predict impacts (i.e.
temperature changes alone do not indicate harm), but past exposure to disease
can increase the sensitivity of populations to future exposures of similar or
related pathogens. Sensitivity depends not merely on location and exposure,
but often is affected by numerous small changes in the underlying support
structure of the group. Dynamic systems such as social groups can be highly
sensitive to small pressures, amplifying dynamic pressures into generating
large effects. Low sensitivity can be the result of robust systems that dampen
such pressures, providing negative feedback loops that actually strengthen
collective response to risks.
The mitigating factor in vulnerability is known as resilience, or the ability
to return to a baseline condition in a reasonable time period following exposure
to a hazard risk. Resilience cannot be measured in terms of material wealth
of aggregate individuals, but is rather a qualitative and emergent measure of
networks and social capital, such as the ability and willingness to reallocate
resources to assist those in need. Resilience is therefore often not measured at
the individual or state level, but rather at intermediate levels of analysis that
include families, neighbourhoods, cities or larger collectives within society.
Health studies have demonstrated that groups with the largest stocks of social
capital are most likely to recover from outbreaks of illness, while recurring ill-
nesses leave neighbourhoods and cities vulnerable to any number of additional
stresses, often creating a downward spiral of vulnerability.
The last factor in vulnerability is fragility, a measure that represents the
variable nature of the factors above. Rather than conceive of resilience as a
'stock' that merely exists and is drawn down over time, fragility represents the
extent to which a group can be stressed before its underlying resilience and
support networks are permanently weakened. Resilience is an emergent prop-
erty of social networks and interactions, and a society's ability to respond from