Assessing Human Vulnerability to Climate Change from an Evolutionary Perspective - Reducing Disaster: Early Warning Systems for Climate Change - page 81

4.4 Conclusion

When assessing a human system's vulnerability to climate change, it is necessary to
evaluate its capacity to adapt to changing conditions. Through adaptation, human
systems can alter their ability to cope with changes in the frequency or intensity of
extreme events, as well as with slower onset climate-related stressors. From an evo-
lutionary perspective, adaptation is driven by the human agents' innovation and
adoption of behaviours and technologies that are more suited to local conditions.
However, agents' ability to adapt is structured by socio-economic, ecological and
historical factors. As illustrated in the cases of the 2010 earthquakes in Haiti and
Chile, these factors can vary signifi cantly across space. The appropriate interven-
tions to reduce vulnerability will depend on the local context.
Vulnerability assessments can help determine which interventions are appropri-
ate in each context by, for example, identifying which geographic areas or particular
stakeholder groups are most in need of early warning or unearthing the underlying
root causes within the human system, such as class structures, that produce vulner-
ability. From an evolutionary perspective, vulnerability assessment must employ a
methodological framework that is capable of capturing agents' decision-making
processes, as well as the place-specifi c historical and structural factors that con-
strain their adaptive capacity. The methodology must examine the diversity of adap-
tation options available to agents, and their ability to retain diversity or create new
diversity through innovative processes that add novelty to the system such as entre-
preneurialism, R&D and technology transfer; and it must evaluate the fl exibility of
governance structures and other institutions in the face of changing conditions.
Numerous methods have been used to identify and assess vulnerability. These
have evolved from impact assessments that employ economic modelling to vulner-
ability assessments that involve quantitative and/or qualitative empirical techniques.
There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach. Quantitative indicators
of vulnerability can enable comparison across systems and more effective imple-
mentation and monitoring of progress. However, vulnerability assessments that rely
exclusively on economic modelling or quantitative indicators fail to fully capture
the root causes of vulnerability.
We argue that the descriptive data necessary to identify the locally specifi c pro-
cesses of adaptation, as well as the deep-rooted structural and historical factors that
constrain adaptive capacity, can only be unearthed through qualitative research
methods. GIVRAPD offers a methodological model for a qualitative CBVA. The
rich historical and descriptive data obtained by such qualitative vulnerability assess-
ments is critical in determining which vulnerability-reducing interventions are most
appropriate, and how they can be effectively implemented.

References

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