Vulnerability of coupled
human-environment systems
Jill Jäger
Co-Director, Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability to Global Environmental
Change
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
The Vulnerability of Coupled
Human-Environment Systems
• Who and what are vulnerable to the multiple
environmental and human changes underway,
and where?
• How are these changes attenuated or amplified
by different human and environmental
conditions?
• What can be done to reduce vulnerability to
change?
• How may more resilient and adaptive
communities be built?
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
The Emergence of Vulnerability
Analysis
• Vulnerability is the degree to which a
system, subsystem, or system component
is likely to experience harm due to
exposure to a hazard, either a perturbation
or stressor/stress
• This definition is not new. It has emerged
from sustained research and practice on
risks and hazards, climate impacts, and
resilience
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
Risk – Hazard Models
• Sought to understand the impact of a
hazard as a function of exposure to the
hazard event and the dose-response
(sensitivity) of the entity exposed
• Past applications generally worked from
the hazard to the impact(s)
• In some cases vulnerability was explicitly
addressed
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
Inadequacies of the Risk-Hazard
Framework
Does not address:
• The ways the system amplifies or attenuates the
impacts of the hazard
• Distinctions among exposed subsystems and
components that lead to significant variations in
the consequences of the hazard
• The role of political economy (especially social
structures and institutions) in shaping differential
exposure and consequences
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
Pressure and Release Models
• Risk defined as a function of perturbation
(stress) and vulnerability of the exposure unit
• Asks what conditions make exposure unsafe
and what causes these conditions
• Used primarily to address social groups facing
disaster events
• Does not address the coupled humanenvironment system (i.e. not biophysical
subsystems), or hazard causal sequence;
underemphasizes feedbacks
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
The Vulnerability Framework
• Draws on the concepts of
– Entitlement
– Coping through diversity
– Resilience
• Entitlements: Legal and customary rights to
exercise command over food and other
necessities of life. Determined by units‘
endowments (what they have to sell and the
price received), the cost of food relative to
endowments, access to markets and resources.
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
Coping Capacity
• Linked to entitlements and endowments
• Societal „safety nets“ empower coping
capacity
• Diversification is an overarching strategy
aimed at reducing risks and increasing
options in the face of hazards
• Much depends on social, economic,
institutional, and political structures
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
Resilience
• A system‘s ability to bounce back to a reference
state after a disturbance
• Or, the capacity of a system to maintain certain
structures and functions despite disturbance
• How much change can a given system undergo
and still remain within the set of natural or
desirable states?
• Explicit incorporation of differential resilience has
become a critical element of analysis of humanenvironment systems
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
Expanded Vulnerability Analysis
• Multiple interacting perturbations and
stressors/stresses and their sequencing
• Exposure beyond the presence of perturbations
• Sensitivity of the coupled system to the
exposure
• System‘s capacity to cope or respond
• System‘s restructuring after the responses
(adjustment or adaptation)
• Nested scales and scalar dynamics of hazards,
coupled systems and responses
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
Useful for decision-making (1)
• Consider the outcomes to be avoided
(working backwards to the perturbation or
stressor) – stakeholder input
• Profile differential vulnerability
• Cognizant of stochastic and non-linear
elements operating on and within the
coupled system (surprise)
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
Useful for decision-making (2)
• Consider role of institutions (stresses,
sensitivity, resilience)
• Identify suspect causal structures and test
cause-and-effect links
• Develop metrics and measures for
assessments, models and tests
• Develop institutional structures for linking
vulnerability analyses to decision-making
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
„Place-based“ Approaches
• Strong variation in vulnerability by location
elevates the role of „place-based“ analysis
• Link to other places and scales of analysis
• Need to find methods to operationalize
vulnerability analysis that are useful for
specificity of place and for building general
concepts from them
• Methodological approaches include „degradation
syndrome“, complex indicator approaches,
integrated modeling and simulation, statistical
downscaling
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
The Vulnerability Framework
• Real world data and other constraints
require „reduced“ vulnerability assessment
• Needs to be aware of different spatiotemporal scales
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
The Basic Architecture
• Linkages to broader human and environmental
conditions and processes (black, top and
bottom)
• Perturbations and stressors/stress (red,left)
• Coupled human-environment system in which
vulnerability resides, including exposure and
responses (blue, centre)
• Spatial scale – place (blue), region (yellow),
globe (green)
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
Lessons
• Human and biophysical vulnerability are linked and
should be treated accordingly
• Beware of one-dimensional vulnerability analysis
• Broadly similar coupled systems do not necessarily have
the same vulnerabilities
• All parts of the coupled system do not necessarily have
the same vulnerability
• Vulnerability assessments should follow a common
general methodological framework
• Critical response options are place-dependent
• Need to link vulnerability analysis to decision-making
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
Reflections on the Vulnerability
Framework
• Full vulnerability assessment is difficult
because of complexity of factors,
processes and feedbacks
• Difficulties amplified by scalar dynamics
• Framework provides useful point of
departure
• Helps identify gaps in understanding and
different stakeholder views
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability
From the Case Studies
• Case studies show the complexity of exposure,
sensitivity and resilience
• In each case, external political and economic
forces are reshaping regional and local
environmental uses and coping capacities
• Local stakeholders voice different concerns
about these changes and are active agents
responding differently based on their individual
understanding and capacities
May 5
Advanced Institute on
Vulnerability