HERO_Meta-protocol
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HERO Project’s Methodology for Protocol Development
HERO-MEPRODE
(Draft)
Liem T. Tran and Shuang-Ye Wu
1. Introduction
The purpose of this manuscript is to present a framework that can be used to develop
a protocol in the HERO project’s context. In so doing, the manuscript focuses on three
questions: (1) What should a HERO protocol be? (2) What should a process to develop
HERO protocol be (say, meta-protocol)? (3) How to construct the HERO meta-protocol?
In addressing these questions, vulnerability assessment protocol will be used as an
illustration. However the general framework remains applicable to other types of HERO
protocols.
2. What should a HERO protocol be?
Definition of protocol:
 Code of correct conduct; rule; guideline.
 The optimal way to carry out a specific task/study given certain constraints/resources.
 A process or application of a methodology or a combination of various methodologies
to study a particular subject.
A HERO protocol should:
 Be dynamic: in terms of incorporating state-of-the-art methodologies/models and new
data. The protocol should evolve readily as research progresses, adding new discoveries
and prompting modification of existing components. Hence HERO protocol is not a
single static methodology but a dynamic combination of various models/components
serving various users’ needs stemming from a particular research question.
 Be robust: the protocol should accommodate a wide spectrum of potential users and
their own needs: for example, the protocol should consist of components that can be
chosen, activated and deactivated by the user. At a higher level, the protocol should
advise users what tools/components are available and suitable to their needs given
different levels of constraints/resources on data availability or funding (say, an expertknowledge-based system). Besides, the protocol should also be robust in terms of
different future scenarios.
 Be balance in terms of approaches (e.g., qualitative versus quantitative, deterministic
versus stochastic, etc.), scope (multi-temporal/spatial scales), and validity (logic between
estimations and level of uncertainty).
 Be standardized: to maintain applicability and to enable comparisons among different
regions.
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 Be user-friendly in design, display, and operation: to allow users to enter, access data,
overlay input/output data on color-coded maps of the study region for different scenarios
and assumptions. Results of studies should be revisable within the protocol framework;
databases can be updated easily; analyses can be run with new information without
resetting the problem.

Include non-proprietary methods and data only.
HERO vulnerability assessment (HERO-VA) protocol
The HERO-VA protocol aims to provide guidance for the application of a set of standard
methodologies to evaluate the vulnerability of natural and social systems to both shortterm climate variability and long-term climate change. Vulnerability in this context is
defined as the extent to which a natural or social system is susceptible to sustaining
damage from climate variability and change. Vulnerability is thus a function of the
sensitivity of a system to climate variability and change (the degree to which a system
will be affected adversely to a given degree of climate variability and change) and the
ability to adapt the system to such climate variability and change (the degree to which
adjustments in practices, processes, or structures can moderate or offset the potential for
damage due to a given change in climate). Under this framework, a highly vulnerable
system would be one that is highly sensitive to modest changes in climate with the
potential for substantial harmful effects, and one for which the ability to adapt is severely
constrained (IPCC, 1998).
Hence three main components of a HERO vulnerability protocol are:
 Risk: How can we investigate the present climate variability, mainly climate-related
hazards such as flood, drought, storms, hails, winds, etc.? How can we predict and
estimate future climate change and variability?
 Sensitivity: How do we analyze the possible impacts of climate variability and change
on natural and social systems? How do we evaluate different natural and social
systems respond to these impacts? What are the characteristics of these systems that
make them more susceptible to damage caused by climate variability and change?
 Adaptation: How do we evaluate the effectiveness of adaptation strategies adopted
either by individuals or collectively as national or international policies and
agreements?
Besides, two important issues which need to be addressed during a vulnerability
assessment are:
 Uncertainty: How can uncertainties be expressed and integrated (“uncertainty”
question)? And
 Policy: How can knowledge of vulnerability is transferred into decision-making
process (“policy” question)?
As discussed above, such a comprehensive vulnerability assessment protocol should
be viewed as a dynamic evolving product rather than a static framework. The protocol
should not only meet current needs of particular vulnerability assessments, but also be
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capable of incorporating theoretical and technical development in this area and readily
reflect the state-of-the-art vulnerability research.
3. Methodology for protocol development (meta-protocol)
Characteristics:
 Dynamic: As HERO protocol is defined as a dynamic rather than static product by
itself, methodology for protocol development must be a dynamic and evolving process,
too, to reflect progresses in research and databases development.
 Multi-criteria: a desired protocol needs to satisfy a set of different criteria. Some of
the criteria might be more relevant or more important than other depending on context of
the problem. For example, a rural region needs suitable tools to assess vulnerability of
agricultural sector while a coastal area requires techniques for assessing risk of sea-level
rise. Such different needs should be analyzed in the process of developing protocol and
transferred into the developed protocol itself. The process of developing protocol also
should be multi-criteria in terms experts from different disciplines participating in the
process.
 A decision-making process: a desired process should accommodate judgments from
different experts and participants into an integrated framework and provides means for
building consensus.
 Well-structured: as the process of developing protocol is complicated and long-term,
it should be facilitated by a highly-structured framework that can record and show
different components/aspects, their relative importance, and their connections in the
whole picture throughout the process.
 Flexible: the process should be flexible enough to allow dynamic transition in
concepts, methodologies, or modules over time to meet changes, advances, and new
findings in knowledge and technology.
HERO-Methodology for protocol development (HERO-MEPRODE)
HERO-MEPRODE is designed with four major phases in an iterative process
allowing moving back and forth from one phase to another (Figure 1).
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Testing Protocol
Constructing Protocol
• Case studies
• Case-study
comparison
Evaluation & Critical Analysis
Seeking answers for HOW &
WHY questions
Structuring Problem
Figure 1. HERO-MEPRODE framework
Phase 1: structuring the problem
Objective: to define the “right question” (WHAT question: What do we want?) and
construct a framework for further analysis.
Generally, this phase is to establish the “right question”, that is, to identify research
aim and objectives. This is done by constructing a hierarchy to represent elements of the
problem, i.e., breaking down the major research issue into smaller constituent parts at
different levels. At the same time, special attention is given to careful definition of
major terms and concepts. It is not unusual that one terminology or a subject may have
different meanings to different people. For example, vulnerability assessment in the
HERO context is not necessarily the same as those in disaster/hazard risk assessment
approaches (although if modifications are made to include a baseline scenario,
assessment of changes in disasters’ patterns and magnitudes due to climate change, and a
comparison between the baseline and future scenarios regarding climate change, those
adjusted approaches can be part of the HERO vulnerability assessment protocol). Hence
a careful definition of the problem and what we want to know is extremely important to
avoid the problem of getting the “right answer” for the “wrong question”.
This phase is also to systematize the study in a highly-structured framework. As
discussed in the above section, a sound protocol should satisfy a set of criteria. These
criteria however may not have a same level of importance or generality. Some criteria
may be more important or more general than others. On the other hand, the relative
importance of a criterion might be different from one problem to another, from one
person to another, or changing over time. Hence there is a need of a hierarchical
framework to accommodate those aspects. Here we suggest the use of the Analytic
Hierarchy Process developed by Saaty (1980). AHP is a systematic procedure to
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construct and represent the elements of a problem in a hierarchy format, breaking down
the problem into smaller constituent parts at different levels. The hierarchy in AHP is
often constructed from the top (goal from management standpoint), through intermediate
levels (criteria on which subsequent levels depend) to the lowest level (usually a set of
alternatives, possible actions). Usually, decision-makers are guided through a series of
pair-wise comparison judgments to reveal the relative impact, or priority of the elements
(e.g., criteria, alternatives) in the hierarchy. These judgments in turn are transformed to
ratio-scale numbers representing relative weights of the elements at a certain level of the
hierarchy, as well as globally. However, to avoid the computational burden of too many
pair-wise comparisons, an absolute scale of judgment can be used. Details of the AHP
methodology, the use of different (relative/absolute) scales, and how to construct the
hierarchy can be seen in Saaty (1980, 1986, 2000).
Figure 2 shows an example hierarchy of a desired HERO vulnerability assessment
protocol. It aims to provide a comprehensive framework for conducting vulnerability
assessment. However, if new elements emerge at a later stage, they can be easily
incorporated into the hierarchy at their appropriate levels. However, it should be noted
that this hierarch only provides an outline for a protocol. In order to operationalize the
framework, more details are needed to fill out the lower levels of the hierarchy until
theoretical issues are broken down into measurable variables. It is not necessary to
bringing in details for the whole framework at the same time. Rather, efforts can be
divided into fulfilling parts of the hierarchy so that they can be combined at a later stage.
Figure 3 shows how part of the VA hierarchy can be further developed into a detailed
framework for assessing people’s vulnerability to climate-related hazards.
Tasks: construct a hierarchy of criteria defining what is a good protocol (e.g.,
vulnerability assessment, LULCC detection, LULCC driver detection, LULCC
modeling). IN HERO-MEPRODE, the AHP hierarchy is used to arrange all desired
features of an ideal protocol without listing what data or methodology to achieve those
features.
Tools: (Web-based) Delphi, AHP, e-notebook, annotation tools, knowledge presentation
tools.
Products: a framework to evaluate & develop protocol; collaboratory activities.
Phase 2: Evaluation & critical analysis
Objective: to examine/evaluate relevant existing studies using the framework developed
in phase 1 to look for their good features that can be used in the being-developed protocol
(HOW and WHY questions: How/Why a study/methodology/technique is
relevant/applicable/important to the being-developed protocol).
As mentioned above, a sound protocol should be robust regarding methodology.
Hence it should reflect/combine/integrate strength (and weakness as well) of relevant
studies/methodologies on the same subject. It not also describes effectively state-of-theart of the research but also provides a robust tool for a wide spectrum of potential users.
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Assessing Vulnerability to Climate Variability and Change
Content
Features
Components of VA
Other special issues
Uncertainty
Risk
Long-term
Climate
Change
Sensitivity
Climate
Variability
Temperature
Climaterelated
Hazards
Precipitation
Flood
Sea-Level
Rise
Drought
Storms
Hail, wind, etc
Natural
Environment
Ecosystems
Adaptability
Huaman
Environment
Built
Environment
Water
Resources
Settlement
Coastal
systems
Critical
facilities
Social
Environment
Infrastructure
Individuals
Future
scenarios
Households
Communities
Economic
Environment
Agriculture
Forestry
Fisheries
Business
Tourism
Figure 2: A Hierarchical Framework for HERO-VA protocol
Natural
Environment
Policy
development
Robust
User-friendly
Transparent
Adaptable
Generalisable
Consistent
Huaman
Environment
Individual
choices and
decisions
Collective
choices and
decisions
Policies and
Agreements
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People's vulnerability to climate-related hazards
Physical Vulnerability
Hazards
Type of
damaging
forces
Extend
Spatial
Frequency
Social Vulnerability
Coping
ability
Exposure
Location of people
Location of property
Temporal
Built
environment
Social
environment
Intensity
Location of infrastructure
Resilience
Backup facilities
Value of property
Insurance
Personal
Level
Age
Gender
Health
Ethnicity
Education
and skills
Prior experience
Household
Level
Income
Size of family
Proportion of wageearning adults
House ownership
Woman-headed
household
Community
Level
Political structure
Stakeholder
involvement
Landuse planning
Perception of
decision makers
Community hazard
management planning
Attitude
Homelessness
Mixed ethnicity
New/old
Fast/slow
growing
Figure 3: A Hierarchical Framework for Assessing People’s Vulnerability to Climate-Related Hazards.
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Tasks: evaluate existing techniques/methodologies/case studies using the framework
developed in the first phase; critical analysis on the methodology/inputs/outputs of
existing studies (e.g., why does that methodology get a very high score on that criterion
but others; how data are used/formatted/displayed; etc.).
Tools: (Web-based) Delphi, AHP, e-notebook, annotation tools, knowledge presentation
tools, geocomputation, database development.
Products: database, data
geocomputational tools.
&
metadata
standards,
collaboratory
activities,
Appendix A shows a list of existing studies relevant to the development of the HERO
vulnerability protocol. A detailed evaluation and critical analysis is under way to be
carried out.
Phase 3: constructing protocol
Objective:
to develop the desired protocol by modifying/improving/combining/
integrating methodologies/techniques analyzed in the second phase to meet the criteria
elaborated in the first phase.
Up to this phase we should have a good understanding of what pieces of the puzzle
are available and what are missing. From that we will start building components of the
protocol based on our priority (reflected in the hierarchy). Some tools/methodologies
won’t be fit in the protocol without appropriate modification/improvement. The protocol
should be designed in a flexible module format allowing adding /modifying a component
without effect on the others. At an appropriate time during this phase, an expertknowledge-based system can be designed and developed to play the role of a decisionsupport tool that can advise users what tools/components are available and suitable to
their needs given different levels of constraints/resources on data availability or funding.
Tasks: critical analysis, computer programming, writing (written) protocol, develop
(computer-based) protocol.
Tools: geocomputation, AI tools, programming.
Products: database, data & metadata standards, collaboratory
geocomputational tools, report, protocol package, knowledge-based system.
activities,
Phase 4: testing protocol
Objective: this phase is to test the applicability of the developed protocol to real-world
problems.
The developed protocol should be tested on different (HERO and more) sites by
various users who may have different purposes. The protocol’s performance will be
evaluated using the hierarchy developed in phase 1 and updated through out the process
of developing the protocol.
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Tasks: testing components of the protocol, sensitivity analysis, uncertainty analysis.
Tools: stand-alone package, geocollaboratory tools.
Products: report, computer-based protocol.
4. Remarks
 HERO-MEPRODE is not a fixed but iterative/flexible process. We can jump forward
or backward from one phase to another at any time during the process. For example,
evaluation & critical analysis can be carry out to some extent at the beginning to get some
idea of what criteria/components should be included in the criteria. In the same context,
Case studies can be done in advance to test the applicability of some promising
methodologies/techniques. Briefly, we can and should move back and forth dynamically
from phase to phase to address and meet our needs/new knowledge/new technology.
 The hierarchy is a highly-structured way to record our knowledge/priority at a certain
point during the process of developing the protocol. By comparing the hierarchies at two
different points of time, we can see how our knowledge is changed/improved through
time.
 The AHP framework facilitates collective efforts/consensus that are a MUST for the
HERO project.
 HERO-MEPRODE allows different HERO groups and outside stakeholders (e.g.,
HERO sites, HEROINE, potential users) work together in an integrated process.
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APPENDIX A
A List of Existing Studies in Vulnerability Assessment
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Haznet: w wide range of studies relevant to HERO vulnerability protocol. For example:
Keillor J. Philip. Planning for a wider range of water levels along Great Lakes and
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Johnson, L.A. Multi-Peril Loss Studies: A Comparative Approach to Assessing
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Stephen Bender (OAS). The Vulnerability of the Energy Sector in Costa Rica. NOAAVATA.
Stephen Bender (OAS). Vulnerability Assessment Study of the Ecuadorian Agricultural
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Steven Stichter (OAS).
Hazard Assessment and Vulnerability Reduction Plan for
Jeremie, Haiti. NOAA-VATA.
Tom Crowards (Agency Caribbean Development Bank). Comparative Vulnerability to
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