Vulnerability: A Short Review

This short literature review on vulnerability was written to inform the development of a Partnership Grant

Letter of Intent submitted by VIU to the Social Science and Humanities Research Council in February

2013. The proposed research project is titled: Seafood Security, Global Change and Wellbeing: An

International Partnership.

Citation: Patterson, M. (2013). Vulnerability: A Short Review. ICR Working Paper #3. Available

at: http://www.viu.ca/icr/resources/publications/

1. DEFINITIONS

The concept of vulnerability can be used as a lens to look at the impacts of global environmental change,

including climate change, on human communities. (Dow, 1992; Janssen & Ostrom, 2006). Vulnerability

has been variously defined and described in both social and ecological contexts, however a simple,

elegant definition is often used in the literature and arises from its Latin origins. The root of vulnerable is

vulnerare meaning “to wound”; therefore, vulnerability can be basically described as: “the capacity to be

wounded” (Kates et al., 1985, in Dow, 1992).

Early thinking about vulnerability has been based in one of two conceptual models. The first is from

seminal research by Amartya Sen who proposed vulnerability could be explained by a lack of

entitlements to things like food security, sustainable livelihoods, social structures, etc, through

institutional, political, technological and other constraints (Sen, 1981). Sen’s thinking went in a different

direction than the second type of research at the time, which took a more basic approach to vulnerability

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as a physical condition that arose due to natural hazards and events, such as floods, droughts, famines, etc.

(Janssen, 2006).

Some research suggests that the social dimensions of the social-ecological system are the most important

factors in aggravating vulnerability, and also in reducing it, through improved resilience and adaptation

measures .“…it is the social capital and social relations that translate these parameters into vulnerability

of place.” (Adger, 2006, p 273). This may certainly be true in mainly wealthy, stable, developed countries

like Canada where vulnerability may be better measured primarily through social factors, than in

developing countries where vulnerability from natural hazards research needs to be considered more

urgently and in combination with social vulnerability. (Lin and Chang, 2013).

The values component of vulnerability research includes issues such as understanding who is vulnerable

and why, and making sure vulnerable communities and individuals actually benefit from policies that are

put in place to adapt to global change and improve wellbeing (Lin and Chang, 2013; Dow, 1992).

Other research argues however, that these two paradigms are actually tightly interconnected in light of

what we have learned about linked socio-ecological systems. In fact, Dow states that “vulnerability is a

property of the complexity of connections among these” (ecological and social factors). (Dow, 1992, p

426). For example, reductions in seafood resources due to climate change (natural hazard) lead to

reduced food security and monetary benefit (entitlements) for seafood communities (Dow, 1992). Dow

and others argue that vulnerability as a cross cutting concept must be made explicit both in future research

and in any governance mechanisms that propose to improve adaptation and resilience for vulnerable

communities. (Adger 2006; Dow, 1992;Gallopin, 2006; Turner et al., 2003).

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Vulnerability research is often conceptually linked or described as interrelated to other familiar research

concepts including: adaptation, adaptive capacity, and resilience (Gallopin, 2006; Smit and Wandel,

2006). Gallopin’s (2006) review and Young et al. (2006) describe significant complexity and not always

firm agreement in understanding the relationships and forces between these three terms but there are some

basic relationships between individual concepts. The relationship between the terms vulnerability and

adaptation speak to whether vulnerable social or ecological systems are able to adapt to change (Carina

and Keskitalo, 2004). Some researchers would say that adaptation and adaptive capacity are synonymous

(Smit and Waddell, 2006). However, others instead describe a relationship between vulnerability and

adaptive capacity including ideas such as baseline states and other factors that affect the capacity of

communities to adapt, as well as the differences sometime seen in different places regarding the capacity

to adapt, and also how the capacity to adapt may be different at different scales (Carina and Keskitalo,

2004; Lin and Chang, 2013). Adaptive capacity is also an active state that can potentially be improved

(Smit and Wandel, 2006). Vulnerability and resilience can be seen as opposite constructs, ie: a state may

be either be vulnerable or resilient but not both. Gallopin states that:

“a more fundamental difference is that resilience, as discussed earlier, applies to the

preservation of the system as expressed by its state remaining within the considered

domain of attraction, while vulnerability refers to transformations that may go beyond a

single domain. The flip side of vulnerability would be a concept that denotes capacity to

maintain the structure of the system against pertubations, even if its resilience is

overcome….” (Gallopin, 2006 p 300).

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2. VULNERABILITY FRAMEWORKS, METHODS AND MEASUREMENT

Measuring vulnerability is complicated both in terms of defining vulnerability in different contexts,

identifying variables and relating cause and effect. (Adger, 2006). Quantifying and reducing

vulnerability through improved governance is also challenging due to social power dynamics, scale,

values and also the complicated relationship between natural and social systems (Dow, 1992; Adger,

2006).

There are a variety of existing vulnerability frameworks in the literature ranging from simple logic chains

that link: hazard to exposure, to sensitivity to impacts (Turner, et al., 2003) to more comprehensive,

multi-criteria frameworks that include, for example: ecological and social factors, different spatial and

temporal scales, contain the concept of uncertainty, and also reflect both entitlement and natural hazard

based vulnerability paradigms (Carina and Keskitalo, 2004; Gallopin, 2006; Smit and Wandel,

2006;Turner, 2003). Approaches to vulnerability research methods more often involve using comparative

case study approaches than a modeling approach (Janssen and Ostrom, 2006). Adger, however, proposes

developing a more quantitative, mathematical framework that can be used to model vulnerability using

indicators and thresholds (Adger, 2006). He argues that this would allow the concept of vulnerability to

better incorporate resilience theory, which is more oriented to mathematical modeling approaches. This

would also help reduce the number of complicating factors involved in case study approaches thus

providing more objectivity for decision-makers (Adger, 2006).

Some vulnerability frameworks have been created for specific case study situations and to address

vulnerability issues at specific scales (Eaken and Bojorquez-Tapa, 2008; Hahn, et al., 2009) suggesting

that global assessment frameworks may not be sufficient to address very different, localized vulnerability

issues, like local livelihoods or household food security.

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3. FUTURE RESEARCH/RESEARCH GAPS

Research gaps related to vulnerability include both, a) research about governance mechanisms that may

advance adaptive capacity and reduce vulnerability (Janssen and Ostrom, 2006); and, b) research that

links crosscutting forces of global change (eg: globalization, climate change) with resilience,

vulnerability, and adaptation (Janssen and Ostrom, 2006; Young et al., 2006). One more specific

suggestion related to research is to ensuring a true understanding of both vulnerability and governance in

the area under study to ensure that new governance mechanisms proposed to reduce vulnerability ensure

that the vulnerable are actually being helped, rather than only those who have the capacity to benefit from

them (Adger, 2006)

There are some differences of opinion among researchers about whether future research agendas should

prioritize development of further (usually top-down) vulnerability assessment frameworks, or more

practically look at implementation in order to improve (bottom up) community adaptation capacity (Smit

and Wandel, 2006).

Assessment and adaptation of linked socio-ecological systems to global change factors including climate

change, food insecurity and the globalization trend are all common in the literature used throughout this

review, suggesting this is a relevant area of research. Young, et al. (2006) describes in particular, the

need for an interdisciplinary approach to research that will begin to better address linked socio-ecological

systems and their response to global change (Young, et al, 2006).

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 Works Cited

Adger, W. N. (2006). Vulnerability. Global Environmental Change 16. 268-281

Carina, E. and H. Keskitalo. (2004). A framework for multi-level stakeholder studies in response to global

change. Local Environment 9.5. 425-435.

Dow, K. (1992). Exploring differences in our common future(s): the meaning of vulnerability to global

environmental change. Geoforum. 23.3 p 417-436.

Eakin, H. and Bojorquez-Tapia, L. (2008). Insights into the composition of household vulnerability from

multicriteria decision analysis. Global Environmental Change. 18. p 112-127.

Gallopin, G.C. (2006). Linkages between vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity. Global

Environmental Change 16. 293-303.

Han, M.B. A,M Riederer, and S.O. Foster. (2009). The livelihood vulnerability index: a pragmatic

approach to assessing risks from climate variability and change – A case study in Mozambique. Global

Enviornmental Change. 19. p 74-88.

Janssen, M.A. and Ostrom, E. (2006). Editorial: resilience, vulnerability and adaptation: A cross-cutting

theme of the international human dimensions programme on global environmental change. Global

Environmental Change 16. 237-239.

Lin, K. and Chang. C. (2013). Progress in Development Studies 13.1. p 1-18.

Sen, A.K. (1981). Poverty and famines: An essay on entitlement and deprivation. Clarendon, Oxford.

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Smit, B. and J. Wandel. (2006). Adaptation, adaptive capacity and vulnerability. Global Environmental

Change 16. 282-292.

Turner, et al. (2003). A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proceedings of the

National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 100. 14. 8074-8079.

Young et al., (2006). The globalization of socio-ecological systems: An agenda for scientific research.

Global Environmental Change 16. 304-316.

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