EGS 3021F: Vulnerability to Environmental Change
Gina Ziervogel (gina@csag.uct.ac.za)
December 2011
This work by Gina Ziervogel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
An aggregate measure of human welfare that
integrates environmental, social, economic
and political exposure to a range of harmful
perturbations.
(Bohle et al. 1994)

How do we develop a
consensual definition
vulnerability?

How do we measure
vulnerability?

The context should drive the choice of methodology
and methods
▪ decision goals, analytical teams, priority vulnerabilities

User orientation
▪ An array of methods is essential: the most useful tools
are those that fit the decision framework of the endusers

Scale of analysis important in selection of methods
▪ e.g. appropriate indicators, availability of data
Questions on scope
Possible answers
Who is the vulnerability assessment for?
Local stakeholders
Other researchers
Regional authorities
National authorities
What is the time frame for the issues to be
addressed?
Current issue, decision scheduled
Current planning horizon, 5-15 years
Long-term future, 30-100 years
What is the policy result?
Operational guidelines
Project design
Strategic plans
Awareness


What hazards and stresses are systems exposed to?
 e.g., economic risks (income loss, debt), natural hazards
Who/ what are the exposure units?
 e.g., social groups, ecosystems, regions



Where are the vulnerable located?
When are people/systems vulnerable?
What are the specific reasons for their vulnerability?
 e.g., dependence on particular resources, reliance on
certain subsidies, social marginalisation
How resilient are the exposure units to current stresses?
– institutional capacity, absorption capacity of ecosystems,
diversity of income sources
• What would be the consequences of exposure to stresses?
– loss of assets, loss of livelihood, unemployment, loss of life?
• What has been the impact of historical episodes or comparable
events?
• What indicators capture current and future vulnerability under
the proposed scenarios?
• What potential responses can be pursued to reduce
vulnerability?
– operational, strategic, policy/regulatory
– scale
•

Impact assessments
 Strategic environmental assessments


Livelihoods based analysis
Consultations
 From Expert judgement, Focus groups & Stakeholder consultation

Past trends and future scenarios work
 Scenario analysis

Evaluation of existing development frameworks
Establish new data needed
Agent-based simulation
modeling
 Bayesian analysis
 Brainstorming
 Checklists/multiple
attributes
 Cognitive Mapping
 Cost-effectiveness/Costbenefit/Expected Value
 Cost Impact Analysis
 Decision conferencing
 Decision/probability trees
 Delphi technique
 Environmental assessment/
Strategic Environmental
Assessment
 Expert judgment

Focus groups
Indicators/mapping
Influence
diagrams/mapping tools
 Multi-criterion analysis
 Ranking/dominance
analysis/pairwise
comparisons
 Risk analysis
 Role-play
 Scenario analysis
 Stakeholder consultation
 Stakeholder thematic
networks
 Vulnerability Profiles
 Wealth ranking



(Downing and Ziervogel, 2004)
1.
2.
3.
4.
Scope assessment
Decide on initial VA questions
Establish existing data
Choose appropriate tools to obtain
necessary data
Buzz group:
What is the aim of scoping the assessment?
Agent-based simulation
modeling
 Bayesian analysis
 Brainstorming
 Checklists/multiple
attributes
 Cognitive Mapping
 Cost-effectiveness/Costbenefit/Expected Value
 Cost Impact Analysis
 Decision conferencing
 Decision/probability trees
 Delphi technique
 Environmental assessment/
Strategic Environmental
Assessment
 Expert judgment

Focus groups
Indicators/mapping
Influence
diagrams/mapping tools
 Multi-criterion analysis
 Ranking/dominance
analysis/pairwise
comparisons
 Risk analysis
 Role-play
 Scenario analysis
 Stakeholder consultation
 Stakeholder thematic
networks
 Vulnerability Profiles
 Wealth ranking



(Downing and Ziervogel, 2004)

Livelihood vulnerability
 Qualitative methods
 Quantitative methods
Indicators and mapping
 Agent-based modelling
 Scenarios

(Downing and Ziervogel, 2004)

What is a livelihood?
 Set of activities
 Assets
 Access
Improve or continue existence

Assets
 Human
 Social
 Financial
 Physical
 Natural
Improve or continue existence
Sustainable Livelihoods: The capability of people to make a
living and improve their quality of life without jeopardizing the
livelihood options of others.
Sustainability implies:
 Ability to cope with and recover from stresses and shocks
 Economic effectiveness and social equity
 Ecological integrity
 Resilience to shocks
(Rennie and Singh, 1996)
An analysis of livelihoods helps VA users to:
 Identify the most vulnerable groups and individuals at a
community or regional scale
 Emphasize the links between policy decisions and household
level activities
 Focus not just on incomes, but also relations, institutions,
access and control of resources
 Identify the sensitivity of different livelihoods to stresses, and
assess their vulnerabilities and strengths
 Captures lessons on how to build community resilience

Qualitative
 Participatory
 Semi-structured Interviews

Quantitative
 Surveys
 Indicators
 Mapping
(Downing and Ziervogel, 2004)
 Participatory approaches







Village mapping
Seasonal calendars
Matrices
Pair-wise ranking
Venn diagrams
Time line
Wealth ranking
 Semi-structured questions
 Focus groups
 Role-play methods
 Oral histories
(Downing and Ziervogel, 2004)
2003
Jan
Feb
Maart
April
Mei
Junie
Julie
Wat onthou
jy oor
verskillende
aspekte van
die weer?
Warm en
droog
Geen
Reen
Ryp en
Winderig
Ryp en
Droog
Donderweer
Reen
Droog
Koel weer
Baie Ryp en
koud
Goeie reen val
Droog
Watter impakte
het die weer
gehad?
(B.V. Boerdery,
inkomstes,
water,
werk-geleenthede,
vee, plae,
parasiete)
Water het
Probleme
Gegee
Hoe het julle
aangepas met
hierdie weer
toestande?
water aangery na
kampe en eie
gedrink
Werk (sp?)
geleenthede
Is swak
Geen reen
Vir maand
Miggies in
Het baie
Die tee.
peste
Inkomste swak
Deur geen
werk
Water het
As reen val
Begin bykom Help dit vir
Veld het goed Die plae
by gekom
Skade by
Lammer oeste
Geen melk (sp?)
ooie
kan nie plant nie
Kan begin Saai
steeds water
aangery
bemark tee
later
melk vir lammers gee lammers
gekoop
melk
laat tee twee
dae lpv(sp?)
een dae le
gedurende
gewag en
gebid (sp?)
(Archer et al, 2008)
(Archer et al, 2008)

A cognitive model that captures diverse
nature of the problem

Useful tool when:
 different stakeholders have different perceptions
of the problem
 the options for addressing a problem are unclear
(Downing and Ziervogel, 2004)
1)
2)
3)
4)
State the problem
Brainstorm assumptions and solutions
Group emerging concepts
Re-illustrate the concepts so they form a
conceptual model
5) Go back to participants
6) Formal cognitive model
(Downing and Ziervogel, 2004)
By Emma Archer

To creatively remove people from their usual roles
and assumptions by involving them as a group in
analytic thinking and assessment
(Downing and Ziervogel, 2004)




Open-ended story/ written case description
Describe the setting for the action
Participants asked to act out potential scenarios
Record
 Tape/video
 Participant feedback
 Observer descriptions/notes
(Downing and Ziervogel, 2004)
By Gina Ziervogel
By Gina Ziervogel
(Ziervogel, 2004)

Role-play enabled the question to be
‘experienced’

Lessons for seasonal forecast dissemination
 Prefer receiving information from person
 Above-normal forecast helpful
 Resources not necessary to respond
(Ziervogel, 2004)
Qualitative narratives of individuals’ histories and
strategies
 Focus:

 Individual perception
 Past stress and response
 Used to suggest indicators

Method
 Can use semi-structured interview or participatory
methods to inform

Multi-stakeholder view of past
(Downing and Ziervogel, 2004)

General questions about perception of past
rangeland quality

Use timeline
 Line with 4 ticks
 Anchoring events
 Add: Stones represent best and worst harvest
1980
1990
Great-grandmother
died
2000
Mozambique
floods
2010
AGENT BASED MODEL OUTPUT
*** TICK 189 ***
person-2 (female) DIED AT AGE
62 OF AIDS
was head of household-1
person-2 had 10 friends;
person-2 had 29 relatives in 5
households (including own)
person-7 (male, 36) becomes new
head of household-1
burialSociety-0 pays out 360.0
Rand to household-1 for the
death of its member person2
By Gina Ziervogel
Scenario presented for feedback at village workshop:
Hilda dies of AIDS (62, HH head)
Funeral cost (R4000); Burial society (R360); Honest becomes HHH (36)
By Gina Ziervogel
By Gina Ziervogel
By Gina Ziervogel

Stratifications of groups within a community as
understood by community members

Categories
▪ Money, availability/access to resources, health,
labour
▪ Poor, average, better-off
▪ Represented by colours, symbols, numbers



Establish categories
Community members place themselves/
key members place households
Consultation possible
 Indicators
 Quantitative
evaluation of
livelihood assets
 Indices
By Gina Ziervogel
Q1
Age
Q2
Gender
Q5
Relationship to household head
Q3
Q7
Q8
household size tot.
No. of fam fed in household for the
ave. month.
no. of months that the
household feeds itself from
farming.
27M
HH
3
3
4
47F
wife
7
7
3
63M
HH
11
10
6
51F
wife
8
7
3
61M
HH
10
9
5
76F
HH
2
1
3
44M
HH
8
7
2
62F
wife
6
6
4
73M
HH
8
3
3

3 class volunteers (actors)
 1 student ‘in distress’ with injured hand
 1 friend
 1 emergency personnel

Scene 1: Student is panicky about accident, goes to
friend for help, who tries to call for help

Scene 2: Student injures hand and is calm about it..
How likely are the following sources of fire to cause accidents
Example from Class practical 2009

Metrics
 “A system or standard of measurement; a
criterion or set of criteria stated in quantifiable
terms” (Oxford English Dictionary)

Metrics important when questioning future
states
 Education; health
 Identify thresholds
 Doesn’t capture cause
Indicators and mapping



Indicator: single measure of a characteristic
Index: composite measure of several indicators
or indices.
Purpose
 Capture spatial variation in vulnerability
 Used for
 guiding decision-making
 prioritising intervention
(Miller et al. 2005)

Caution
 complex nature of vulnerability
 difficulty in capturing diversity and sensitivity

Reflect explicit conceptual framework of
vulnerability
 Can’t compare indicators that assess different temporal
and spatial scales
 Units of measurement are often inconsistent
(Miller et al. 2005)

First identify appropriate indicators in regards to the
conceptual framework

Indicators are then transformed into standard scores for
mapping
• Can use aggregate measures (e.g., food security index
might use crop yield, income, and nutrition measures)
•
Explore indicator database structure
What is the range of values?
Are there critical thresholds for vulnerability?
Are indicators correlated with each other?
(Miller et al. 2005)

Who are the most vulnerable groups and what shapes
their vulnerability in the face of climate variability and
change?

What shapes the exposure to and ability of certain
groups to rebound from drought hazards?

How does institutional capacity influence the capacity
of the affected individuals and households to cope
with/adapt to droughts and reduce vulnerability?

Will adaptive capacities change in the future? If so, how?
(http://www.aiaccproject.org/)
Project in Nigeria and
Mali: Research Design

Rapid Rural Assessment to:
 Identify major livelihood systems
 Identify vulnerability indicators,
 Assign weights to indicators.

Methods
 Preliminary Survey
 Focus Group Discussion
(http://www.aiaccproject.org/)
Index
Value
Measured/Calculated as
Range
Average
1
Acreage under cultivation
1
Hectares/consumer units
0.1 -2.8
0.6
2
Dependency ratio
1
Labour units/consumer units (inverted)
0.3 – 0.8
0.5
3
Livestock ownership
1
Tropical Livestock Units/consumer units
0.0 – 8.2
3.7
4
Gender of Household
Head
1
Value given to sex of household head
1.0 – 2.0
1.8
5
Livelihood diversification
1
Weighted number of non-agricultural income
generating activities/consumer units
0.0 - 2.4
0.7
6
Annual cash income
1
In 1000 Naira/consumer units
2.5 – 9.7
4.2
7
Drought Preparedness
1
Value given to use of drought resistant crops
and livestock and receives drought related
information and advise
0.0 – 2.0
1.1
8
Educational background
of the household head
0.5
Value given to highest school level attained
by the head of the household
0.0 -4.0
1.8
9
Land tenure situation
0.5
Value given to land tenure situation
1.0 – 3.0
2.5
10
Type of house
0.5
Value given to type of house lived in
1.0 -3.0
1.80
11
Self-sufficiency in food
production
0.5
Number of years surplus foodstuffs were sold
minus number of years foodstuffs were
bought in the past 10 years
0.0 -20.0
11.2
12
Family and Social
Networks
0.5
Value given to strength of family and social
networks.
1.0 – 4.0
2.25
13
Quality of household
0.5
Number of able persons/ number of disabled
and or sick persons in the household
(inverted)
1.5 – 12.0
7.6
Overall Vulnerability
10
Sum of (index scores * index value)
235.1 to 833.9
472.1
 Indicators
Risk of drought
 Participatory mapping
Risk of acute drought
Risk of flood
Risk of flood and
drought
Risk of flood and
acute drought
LEGEND
Infrastructure, Population and
Poor People at Risk by
Municipios
Top 10
10 -25
25 - 60
60 - 291
T.E. Downing
Human Development Index
http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/hdi/
HDI Class
Missing (10)
Low
(45)
Medium (22)
High
(100)
(HDI website 2009)
http://soils.usda.gov/use/worldsoils/mapindex/desert.html
Global index of ‘progress towards environmental
sustainability’
 142 countries
 Twenty ‘core’ indicators

 5 categories: environmental systems, environmental
stresses, human vulnerability to environmental risks, a
society's institutional capacity to respond to
environmental threats, and a nation's stewardship of the
shared resources of the global common
 core indicators composed of multiple indicators, based on
the best available quantitative data.
(http://www.ciesin.org/indicators/ESI/)
http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/wdc/downloads/maps/sustainability/Environmental_Sustainability_Index/2005_ESI_Scores_by_Country.jpg

The EPI focuses on two overarching
environmental objectives:
 reducing environmental stresses to human health;
 promoting ecosystem vitality and sound natural
resource management.

Objectives gauged using 25 performance
indicators tracked in six well-established
policy categories, which are then combined
to create a final score.
(http://epi.yale.edu)
(http://epi.yale.edu)
(http://epi.yale.edu)
•
‘Hotspot’ analysis is an example of integrated VA
– three key areas of information:
– environmental stresses;
– vulnerability of people & ecosystems to stresses;
– and impacts on ecosystem services
– “Hotspot” is a geographically delineated area
where there is a convergence of threats,
vulnerability and impacts
(Mathur, 2005)
(www.biodiversityhotspots.org)

Biodiversity hotspots


Norman Myers pioneered in late 80s
Must meet two strict criteria:


contain at least 1,500 species of vascular plants (> 0.5 percent of the
world’s total) as endemics,
and it has to have lost at least 70 percent of its original habitat.
(Myers et al, 2000)
Cape Floristic Kingdom
Hotspot Original Extent:
78.555 km2
Hotspot Vegetation Remaining:
15.711 km2
Evergreen fire-dependent shrublands characterize the landscape of the Cape
Floristic Region, one of the world's five Mediterranean hotspots. Home to the
greatest non-tropical concentration of higher plant species in the world, the region is
the only hotspot that encompasses an entire floral kingdom, and holds five of South
Africa’s 12 endemic plant families and 160 endemic genera. The geometric tortoise,
the Cape sugar-bird, and a number of antelope species are characteristic of the
Cape Floristic hotspot.
(www.biodiversityhotspots.org)
Succulent Karoo
Hotspot Original Extent: 102,691km2
Hotspot Vegetation Remaining:
29,780km2
(www.biodiversityhotspots.org)
Integrated VA of areas at risk from key infrastructure developments
•
Phase 1 developed as part of the SEI Strategic Environmental
Framework for the Greater Mekong Sub-region:
– integrates analytical, participatory, and policy-oriented
processes
– combines multiple indicators of poverty and environmental
stress
– developed a GIS-P application to integrate expert knowledge
to identify ‘hotspots’
(Mathur, 2005)
Mekong ‘Hotspots’*
Phase 2 produced:
• tools for integration of expert
knowledge
• participatory risk assessment
processes
• illustrations of development
choices, challenges, and
potential impacts
• develop an early warning
monitoring and management
system
* Based on study undertaken by Mathur, 2005


Different livelihood groups are subject to different stresses
Need to understand what they stresses and impacts are in
order to target development
Unemployment
Village A
Health Facilities
GDPpc
Village B
Roads
Maize Consumption
Infant Mortality
Maize Production
HIV
Vulnerability Profile, Delanta Dawunt, Ethiopia
Low income crop (V High)
HH Size
1.1
Types of dairy
0.9
Middle income crop (High)
Crop/dairy (Mod)
Male laborers
Isolated, middle income crop (Mod)
High income dairy (Mod)
0.7
Livestock holdings
Total Income
0.5
0.3
0.1
Road Access
-0.1
Total Expenditure
Mid Altitude
Crops sales price in bad year
Crop land
Food Aid
Grazing land
•
•
•
Represent actors as software agents
Multi-level vulnerability
Emergence from interactions

Agent:
 self-contained programme that can control its own
actions, based on it perceptions of its operating
environment

ABM enables construction of models using a
bottom-up approach
 new forms of vulnerability evolve as a result of the
local micro-level interactions between agents
 Enables evaluation of response to multiple stressors

ABM of farmers’ use of seasonal forecasts
 Assessed under different conditions
 for different types of agents

Based on empirical fieldwork

Enables experimentation
 Variations in type of information
 Explore which strategies reduce vulnerability
(Bharwani et al, 2005)
(Bharwani et al, 2005)
(Bharwani et al, 2005)

HH income Current situationWithout new miningWith new
miningPoorR1,000R2,000R3,000professionalR10,000R10,000
R15,000RichR20,000 - 45,000R20,000 - 45,000R50,000 –
R80,000
HH monthly
income
Poor
Current Without new
With new
situation mining (+ 20 yrs) mining (+ 20 yrs)
R1,000
R2,000
R3,000
Professional R10,000
Rich
R10,000
R20,000 - R20,000 45,000
45,000
R15,000
R50,000 80,000
Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ8leCy7Qvc
Resilience: How is scenario planning useful?
Garry Peterson

The profit Jeremiah
 His prophecies of extreme
warning went largely
unheeded by the people of
Israel

Utopia
 Visualisation of desirable
futures
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aeon/2776979282/
The limits of prediction
 Complex socio-environmental processes
 Surprise and the kinks of history
The nature of scenarios

Vision of a future time
 Sufficiently beyond the present to not be inherently predictable

Internally consistent
 Plausible relationships between elements, multiple attributes

Semi-quantitative
 Associated with indicators or supported by formal models

Policy-relevant not policy-prescriptive
Scenarios are plausible and often simplified
descriptions of how the future may develop,
based on a coherent and internally consistent
set of assumptions about key driving forces
and relationships.
(Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,
http://www.maweb.org/documents/document.327.aspx.pdf )





Visions and back-casting
Model simulation and probability
Worst case
Stakeholder-led/interactive
Role playing, gaming


Venetian visions (Ulysses)
Climate change
 IPCC
 Long term mitigation scenarios (DEAT)

South African food security scenarios
CURRENT DRIVING
FORCES
VISIONS
Scenarios Narratives
DEMOGRAPHIC
ECONOMIC
IDENTIFICATION
BREAKING POINTS
TRANSPORTATION
GOVERNANCE
CULTURAL
(Funtowicz and Pereira, 1999)
Tonight I’ll tell you
about 4 cities
Marco Polo tells Kublai Kan…
(Funtowicz and Pereira, 1999)
Tourism has trickled to a small fraction
Living conditions have
deteriorated…
Air and water pollution
significantly affect human and
ecosystem health
Traditional activities close down
Building Decay
Emigration
increases
A ‘new Venice’
in the mainland
is created to
preserve
the cultural heritage
Gotham City
(Funtowicz and Pereira, 1999)
Venice became a cultural park and a museum
city: one of the 4 most important tourist
destinations of the world
Venice is a stage
where the whole
population acts in
a gigantic
performance
Corporations
dominate economy
and city life
Carnival takes place 4
times a year
Venezia Inc.
Floods and high tides
become tourist
attractions
(Funtowicz and Pereira, 1999)

Desired future state
 Evaluating goals
 Assumptions

Current path
 Interventions needed to reach desired future
(Funtowicz and Pereira, 1999)

Based on:
 Socio-economic scenarios of the future
 Greenhouse gas emissions
▪ atmospheric concentrations
 Global climate models
A2 – local economic
growth, high pop
growth, low
technological change
A1B – High economic
growth, low pop growth,
efficient technology
B1 – Sustainable
development, low pop
growth, high economic
growth
(http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-3.html, IPCC)
Projections of Future
Changes in
Climate
(http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html, IPCC)
There is now higher confidence in projected
patterns of warming and other regional-scale
features, including changes in wind patterns,
precipitation, and some aspects of extremes
and of ice.
Growth without
constraint
Required by Science
Current emissions quadruple by
2050 (from 440Mt – 1600/year)
Current emissions reduced by
30 – 40% by 2050
Fuel consumption grows 5 fold
Joint international efforts to
reduce emissions
Energy production remains
mainly coal with more nuclear
New technologies taken up in
SA at earlier and larger scale
(including hydrogen-based
transport and increased
awareness of use)
(http://www.environment.gov.za/HotIssues/2008/LTMS/LTMS.html DEAT, 2007)
(http://www.environment.gov.za/HotIssues/2008/LTMS/LTMS.html DEAT, 2007)
Start Now
300
Scale Up
Industrial efficiency
Use the
Market
Industrial efficiency
Escalating CO2 tax
300
150
150
-R 34
0
450
Nuclear, extended
300
150
R 52
0
150
0
300
150
R 20
Renewables, extended
300
150
R 18
0
150
0
Synfuels CCS 23 Mt
300
-R 1,131
0
R 92
R 125
-People-oriented
measures
Biofuel subsidy
300
0
-Identify
resources
Subsidy for renewables
300
150
Passenger modal shift
150
R 42
0
Nuclear
300
-New technology
600
-R 34
0
Renewables
300
Reach for
the Goal
150
150
0
300
R 54
R 697
0
- Transition to low
carbon economy
Improved vehicle efficiency
Electric vehicles in GWC grid
300
300
150
0
-R 269
150
0
R 607
300
150
0
SWH subsidy
-R 208
(http://www.environment.gov.za/HotIssues/2008/LTMS/LTMS.html DEAT, 2007)
94
A. Misselhorn, S. Drimie, C. Schwabe
M. O’Donovan, M. Faber, S.Hendriks, J. Kirsten, P. Kuzwayo,
P. Laubscher, S. Lemke, E. Maunder, R. Swart, R. Verduijn,
C. Walsch, A. Whiteford, G. Ziervogel

Food Availability, Access, Stability, Utilization

> 40% of people in South Africa are food insecure

50% of people are poor

Affordability of food main problem in SA – food
prices

Chronic malnutrition – nearly 20% of children 1-3yrs

HIV/AIDS - nearly 19% of population
(Misselhorn et al, 2006)
 Economic growth
 Social Security: high dependence on social transfers
 Infrastructure and services
o Critical for economic growth and to improve
livelihood capabilities
(Misselhorn et al, 2006)
Extreme inequality and poverty persist: unequal food
access
 Poor human capital significant feature of food
insecurity (HIV)
(Misselhorn et al, 2006)
MULTIPLE CONSTRAINT






HIV/AIDS
Human capacity
Credit access
Land access
Access to agricultural inputs
Poor extension & support
POSSIBLE OPPORTUNITIES
 Increases livelihood options
 Buffer against absolute
poverty or hunger for poor
 Supplements incomes
 Dietary diversity options
(Misselhorn et al, 2006)
1. Integrated POVERTY REDUCTION strategy:
a) Pro-poor economic growth
b) Comprehensive social protection
2. Encourage AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT and allied non-
farm enterprises to promote the livelihoods of those on the
periphery of the formal economy
3. Alter and strengthen INSTITUTIONAL arrangements of the IFSS
4. Establish a well coordinated and well managed food security
MONITORING, EVALUATION and INFORMATION system
(Misselhorn et al, 2006)
BETTER
CROSS CUTTING
POTENTIALITIES
Strengthening
IFSS
INSTITUTIONAL &
POLICY
SCENARIOS OF..
THE LOCAL FOOD
SECURITY
‘SYSTEM’
Reduced
livelihoods
capabilities
and choices
“Business as
usual”
CROSS CUTTING
STRESSORS
2007
FOOD SECURITY
Improved
livelihoods
capabilities
and choices
WORSE
2019
(Misselhorn et al, 2006)
(Downing and Ziervogel, 2004)
(Downing and Ziervogel, 2004)
•
Plethora of local studies of vulnerability
– key lessons on the reduction of vulnerability
– link with macro-scale analyses (hotspots - livelihood analysis)
•
Scale linkages
– between local manifestations of vulnerability and risk
construction at more macro scales (trade relations, basin-wide
environmental change, national policy)
•
Complexity associated with consideration of interaction
between multiple risks
– economic shocks, socio-economic change, environmental
risks



Scenarios
Indicators and mapping
Participatory livelihood methods
Between the 2(3) of you, each choose 1 method
– describe to the other the strengths and
weaknesses of your chosen approach
Archer, E.R.M., Oettlé, N.M., Louw, R, Tadross, M.A. 2008. Farming on the Edge' in arid western South
Africa: adapting to climate change in marginal environments. Geography. 93. 98-107.
Bharwani, S., Bithell, M., Downing, T.E., New, M., Washington, R and Ziervogel, G. 2005. Multi-agent
modelling of climate outlooks and food security on a community garden scheme in Limpopo, South
Africa. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
Bohle, H. G., Downing, T. E. and Watts, M. J. 1994.Climate change and social vulnerability: Toward a
sociology and geography of food insecurity. Global Environmental Change, 4(1): 37-48
Chopra, K., Leemans, R., Kumar, P., and Simons, H. 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Policy
responses, Volume 3. Findings of the Responses of Working Group of the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment. Washington, Covelo, London: Island Press. Can be accessed at
http://www.maweb.org/documents/document.327.aspx.pdf)
Downing and Ziervogel, 2004. Toolkit for Vulnerability and Adaptation Training. Stockholm Environment
Institute.
Funtowicz, S.O. and Pereira, A. G. 1999. Visions report: Venice 2050. Joint Research Centre. Ispra, Italy
Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), 2007. Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning,
M., Chen, Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K.B., Tignor, M. and Miller H.L. (Eds), Contribution of Working Group I to
the Fourth Assessment Report, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, USA: Cambridge University
Press. (accessed at http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html)
Mathur, V. 2005. High Risk Regions: Poverty and Vulnerability Briefing Note, SEI www.vulnerabilitynet.org
Miller, F. Downing, T. , Ziervogel,F. , Mathur, V. and Lindskog, E.2005. Vulnerability
Assessment: an overview of approaches and methods. WTO and Environmental Protection
Session on Sustainability Impact Assessment and National Impacts.Sept 2005
Misselhorn et al, 2006. Achieving Food Security in South Africa: Characteristics, Stressors &
Recommendations to 2019. Report for the South African Government.
Myers, N., R. A. Mittermeier, C. G. Mittermeier, G. A. B. da Fonseca, and J. Kent. 2000.
Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403:853-858
Pereira, A.G. 2002. Venice and Visions. Presentation at Trieste AIACC workshop
Rennie, J. and N. Singh. 1996. Participatory research for sustainable livelihoods: a guidebook
for field projects. Ottawa: IISD.
Ziervogel, G. 2004. 'Targeting seasonal climate forecasts for integration into household level
decisions: the case of smallholder farmers in Lesotho', The Geographical Journal. 170.1. 621.
Oxford English Dictionary (www.oed.com)
All web links were checked in November 2011
Acknowledgements: Some slide material from Tom E. Downing