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stimuli. The effect may be direct (e.g. a change in crop yield in
response to a change in the mean, range, or variability of temperature)
or indirect (e.g., damages caused by an increase in the frequency of
coastal flooding due to sea-level rise)”. Finally, the adaptive capacity
represents “the ability of a system to adjust to climate change
(including climate variability and extremes)”.
In traditional approaches to risk, vulnerability is a function of the
hazard and of the level of exposure of the system to the hazard in
question. The notions of sensitivity as capacity to adapt are not
explicitly mentioned, although they implicitly constitute elements of
the analysis. So specialists in resilience tend to refer to the
coping capacity of a system, whereas specialists in adaptation to
climate change will use the terms adaptive capacity. However,
these two notions refer back to similar concepts of the capacity
(or lack thereof) of a system both to respond to a hazard and to
anticipate the successive hazards. It therefore appears that a
“simplified” approach, in that it does not enter conceptual debates
opposing specialists in risk and specialists in climate change, is now
necessary in a wide social sciences perspective. “Simplified” however
does not necessarily mean 'simplistic' as it does not neglect the need
for depth in the analysis required by the study of vulnerability. The
depth of analysis is justified by the fact that the vulnerability of a
system, current and future, is rooted in a certain length of time.
6.3.1.2. From the roots of society to current living conditions
Blaikie, Cannon, Davis and Wisner developed at the beginning of
the 1990s the “Pressure and Release” model (the PAR Model,
Figure 6.4). The basic idea relies on the realization that a “(…) a
disaster is the intersection of two opposing forces: those processes
generating vulnerability on one side, and physical exposure to a
hazard on the other” [BLA 94, p. 22]. Their study mainly highlights
the interest in developing a model of vulnerability as rooted in the
intimate bases of the society under study. The human factors
responsible for the weaknesses of a group can be categorized in three
dimensions, which encourages researchers to base their analysis on the
fundamental values of the society.
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