From Vulnerability to Adaptation to Climate Change: Food for Thoughts in Social Sciences - Vulnerability of Coastal Ecosystems and Adaptation - page 231

shortage that would be revealed by a lack of precipitation, by higher
temperatures than normal and/or by overconsumption problems.
Timeframes affect the nature and scale of the impacts, and
therefore of the forms vulnerability can take. On the basis of this
assumption, N. Brooks [BRO 03] proposed a classification of hazards
following three categories. Namely the 'discrete recurrent hazards',
first, which includes short hazards repeated in time, with lower or
higher frequencies. Storms, drought events or floods typically feature
in this category. These types of hazards are relatively well understood
today, as scientific research has looked at case studies and at the
analysis of their various impacts. The second category, that of
'continuous hazards', refers to continuous phenomena such as the
increase in mean temperatures on the Earth's surface, sea level rise or
desertification. Modern societies are unarmed when faced with these
hazards, as although technical solutions may exist to prevent discrete
hazards 5 , addressing continuous risks requires profound behavioral
changes and changes in development strategies, which assume long-
term projections [MAG 13]. This is incidentally what explains the
main fears when it comes to climate change. Finally, the third
category regards 'discrete singular hazards', i.e. phenomena which
only occur on a one-off basis as opposed to recurrently, and in a brutal
or progressive way. Their identification depends on the timescale
considered: climate-related stress 6 or a change in ocean current
circulation for instance. Of course, this marks the limit between the
two previous categories but it enables reinforcing the idea that risk
and therefore the vulnerability level are understood differently
according to the time step considered.
Finally, hazards are defined by their scale , in this case, i.e. by their
spatial footprint. The tsunami in Sumatra (December 2004) for
instance was felt all the way to the Eastern coasts of Africa which
were several thousands of kilometers away from the source of the
5 Solutions to these hazards are often costly and associated with variable efficiency
which do not depend only on technical aspects (acceptance by societies for example).
6 Here, we enter the sphere of distinction between climate variability and climate
change.