Vulnerability, Resilience, and Climate Change
Can vulnerability and resilience co-exist and how are these theories applied in practice?
Both resiliency and vulnerability look at how people and systems respond to change. In the context of social-economic change, resiliency tends to focus on how well a system can adapt to incoming changes while still preserving the same function. Vulnerability tends to focus on what challenges, such as social, economic, political, or environmental, are present for certain groups, such as ages, genders, or religions.
Miller et al. (2010) explain how resilience primarily comes from the natural sciences fields, which informs its approach to the topic. There are often cited critical features of resilience, including persistence, adaptability, transformability, and capacity to cope (Miller et al., 2010; Ford et al., 2020). Vulnerability, on the other hand, Miller et al. (2010) describe coming from a more theoretical background, specifically in hazard studies from a variety of different fields. The main factors of vulnerability are more disputed and depend on the exact definition of vulnerability that is chosen.
A highly contested topic is whether or not vulnerability and resilience can co-exist in the same system. Frequently, the consensus is no (Bahadur et al., 2010). However, I do not agree. As Ford et al. (2010) succinctly state:
“vulnerability is not always simply the opposite of resilience, and both can exist simultaneously within a population and vary among social groups, over time, and by the nature of stress(ors).”
Some of the main characteristics of resilient systems include high levels of diversity, effective governance and institutions, acceptance of uncertainty, and preparedness activities which aim to adapt to change instead of resist (Bahadur, et al. 2010). Although all of these factors may be in place in a community, giving it a very high resiliency, if that community is located in an island community it will still be vulnerable to rising sea-levels. To me, this illustrates the idea that resilience and vulnerability theories are complementary, instead of different sides to the same coin. However, due to the wide variety of definitions of both vulnerability and resilience, it is extremely difficult to expand this and find consensus.
Although resilience and vulnerability theory both have strengths and weaknesses, such as physical, temporal, and analytical scales; both theories lack the ability to be easily translatable to practice (Miller, et al., 2010). As in many areas of research, there is still a large gap between researchers and policy makers/politicians who are best placed to utilize the research, which could be improved through combined resilience/vulnerability tools designed for policy makers to assess an areas combined levels and ensure the most vulnerable are heard.
Applications in Practice
Although there are weaknesses in how resilience and vulnerability theories are applied in practice, they are currently quite important to how we approach current and upcoming climate changes.
A good example of applying resilience theory is in Asheville, North Carolina, USA. The City of Asheville may not be a city that you think of when you think of areas affected by climate change — it is inland, with a temperate climate and far above sea level. However, the city takes potential risks seriously, focusing specifically on how the people and assets might be affected by changes (Hrynyshyn, 2021).
The city chose to utilize the Climate Resilience Toolkit’s Steps to Resilience framework, comprising of five steps: 1. Explore hazards 2. Assess vulnerability and risk 3. Investigate options 4. Prioritize and Plan 5. Take Action. In step one, the City found three primary stressors — heavy precipitation, drought, and temperature extremes.
The City of Asheville went on to study which and how many assets were vulnerable to these stressors, finding out that around 23% of land used by community services were at risk for flooding (Hrynyshyn, 2021). Through workshops, involvement with external stakeholders such as UNC Asheville’s National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center, and cross-functional government groups, the City was able to adopt the climate resiliency plan into the city plan. It has since developed resources for the community and individuals to increase resiliency and started the Climate Justice Initiative to work with BIPOC leaders and community members to create a definition for climate equity (Climate, 2023).
References
Bahadur, A. V. et al (2010) The resilience renaissance? Unpacking of resilience for tackling climate change and disasters, Strengthening Climate Resilience Discussion Paper 1, Brighton: IDS
Climate (2023) The City of Asheville. Available at: https://www.ashevillenc.gov/department/sustainability/climate-initiatives/ (Accessed: 10 November 2023).
Ford, J.D., N. King, E.K. Galappaththi, T. Pearce, G. McDowell and S.L. Harper ‘The resilience of Indigenous Peoples to environmental change’ , One Earth 2(6) 2020, pp.532–54
Hrynyshyn, J. (2021) Asheville Makes a Plan for Climate Resilience, U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit. Available at: https://toolkit.climate.gov/case-studies/asheville-makes-plan-climate-resilience (Accessed: 10 November 2023).
Miller, F., H. Osbahr, E. Boyd, F. Thomalla, S. Bharwani, G. Ziervogel, B. Walker, J. Birkmann, S. Van der Leeuw, J. Rockström and J. Hinkel ‘Resilience and vulnerability: complementary or conflicting concepts?’, Ecology and Society 15(3) 2010, p.11.
