Assessing Human Vulnerability to Climate Change from an Evolutionary Perspective - Reducing Disaster: Early Warning Systems for Climate Change - page 60

Chapter 4
Assessing Human Vulnerability to Climate
Change from an Evolutionary Perspective

J. Ryan Hogarth , Donovan Campbell , and Johanna Wandel

Abstract Human vulnerability to extreme events is not only a factor of exposure to
exogenous hazards; it is also a factor of endogenous characteristics of the human
system in question (be it a household, community or nation). Vulnerability assess-
ments aim to identify the different elements that contribute to a human system's
vulnerability. This chapter presents behavioural and structural perspectives on vul-
nerability, and argues that an evolutionary perspective can offer important insights,
particularly in regard to human systems' adaptive capacity. Human systems have a
capacity to adapt to local environmental and climatic conditions; however, that
capacity is constrained by structural and historical factors. To illustrate, a compari-
son is made between the root causes of vulnerability in Haiti and Chile to their
respective 2010 earthquakes. Different modelling and empirical methods that have
been used to assess vulnerability are discussed. It is argued that the rich data neces-
sary to identify the structural and historical root causes of vulnerability can only be
obtained through qualitative research methods. The methodology used by the
Global Islands' Vulnerability Research Adaptation and Policy Development Project
is offered as a model for a qualitative community-based vulnerability assessment.

Keywords Climate change ￿ Vulnerability ￿ Adaptation ￿ Evolutionary

￿ Community-based vulnerability assessment