ECOSYSTEM SERVICES

1. A SCIENCE OF VULNERABILITY AND ADAPTATION Scope Risks Adapt VULNERABILITY DEFINED Vulnerability has many definitions, from different disciplines, research-policy communities and even languages. The main traditions are: Poverty-sustainable livelihoods: An aggregate measure of human welfare that integrates environmental, social, economic and political exposure to a range of harmful perturbations. Natural hazards: The social, economic and geographical exposure to a hazard; a set of functions that relate a geophysical hazard to its consequences: Risk = Hazard x Vulnerability Climate change: The degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes: Vulnerability = ∫(Exposure, Sensitivity, Adaptive capacity) In order to communicate sensibly, a formal notation for vulnerability is required: TVcs,g • T = Threat: • Climate change • Drought • Flood • Economic recession NATURAL SYSTEMS • G = Group: • Smallholder farmers • Pastoralists • Urban poor ECOSYSTEM SERVICES • S = Sector: • Agriculture • Urban • Water CROP YIELDS GCM LIVELIHOOD ACTIVITIES FARM-LEVELCOPINGSTRATEGIES LOCAL GLOBAL LIVELIHOODS TRADE &TECHNOLOGY ACTORS SOCIO-INSTITUTIONAL Recomendaciones de Políticas Nivel Micro Regional Nacional Top Down AMENAZA Capacidad de Adaptación RIESGO Nivel Local Adaptación Vulnerabilidad Dimensión Socio Política Actores Proyectos Programas Políticas Ordenanzas Leyes Convenios Convenciones Relaciones +/- Medios de Vida Sp y elementos Estrategias de Vida Ecosistemas Subsistema Social Subsistema Ecológico SISTEMA SOCIO ECOLOGIOCO DEL BAJO LEMPA TERRITORIO Nivel Internacional Global Bottom Up • ADAPTATION NOMENCLATURE • Adaptation to climate change and climatic variability is a process by • which strategies to moderate, cope with, and take advantage of the consequences of climatic events are enhanced, developed, and • implemented. Adaptation is the flip side of vulnerability. A consistent set of definitions is required in order to incorporate adaptation and adaptive capacity in models of vulnerability and stakeholder decision making: • Adaptation action:an action (i) that can be implemented by an actor (a). • Xa,i Each action (Xa,i) includes attributes such as: • Information required to enact the action • Resources required to enact the action • Expected outcome (which may be a complex function), and • Linkages to other actors (an action may require approval by other actors) • Adaptation strategy: the set of specific actions (Xa,i) that that actor (a) formulates to Aa,i = {Xa,1 … Xa,n} guide the selection of actions. For example, improving on-farm agricultural technology is an adaptation strategy, with elements such as new crop varieties, mulching and irrigation. • Adaptive capacity:the super set of adaptive strategies is the composite of all present • A’ = {Aa,1, … Aa,n} strategies (and their elements) that an actor can draw upon. Correlates of adaptive capacity include income, knowledge, and socio-institutional factors, among others. • Adaptive potential:links the systemic driving forces of socio-institutional change, • (A”) such as income, technology, and globalisation, to the capacity of actors to implement effective adaptation strategies. Adaptive potential (A’’) is a system property not uniquely related to specific stakeholders that defines the frontiers of innovation potentially available to actors. • C = Consequence: • Loss of life • Health and morbidity • Economic impacts on production, assets or infrastructure • Social stress DYNAMIC, MULTI-LEVEL PROCESSES The SEI approaches vulnerability and adaptation as a set of relationships between actors, linking through livelihoods sto ecosystem (and economic) services from the local to global scale. While this is not intended as an analytical model, the figure is a template for mapping vulnerable situations (shown here are the domains of crop-climate impacts and agricultural adaptation. • Key features: • Livelihoods and their productive activities link actors and the natural environment. • Livelihoods are linked to actors at different scales, including local to global policy and economic processes. • The coupled natural-social system is in flux; vulnerability and adaptation are dynamic processes across scales and sectors. • To understand the milieu of dynamic vulnerability and adaptation, four methods are under development: • Participatory and qualitative methods are required to understand the context of livelihoods, their adaptive capacity and their decision making processes. • Vulnerability assessment methods focus on livelihoods as generic descriptions of vulnerable socio-economic groups. • Knowledge elicitation techniques capture the range actor responses to changes in their natural and social environments. • Agent based social simulation formalises the links among actors and with their social, economic and resource environments. FROM CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS TO FORMAL MODELS Examples of frameworks of vulnerability and adaptation link human and social systems (left: from the SEI Risk and Vulnerabilty Programme; right: from a UNDP project in El Salvador), focus on livelihoods (based on the CARE model and five capitals of livelihoods), and portray exposure and coping as the double structure of vulnerability (from Hans Bohle). Our challenge is translate such conceptual approaches into viable formal models. This requires clear definitions, a robust nomenclature and suitable techniques. FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: SEI Oxford Office 10b Littlegate Street Oxford OX1 1QT, UK Sei-oxford@sei.se Sites & Sources: Vulnerability Network: www.VulnerabilityNet.org SEI Risk and Vulnerability Programme: www.sei.se University of Oxford/SEI/Tyndall Centre Cloud Project: www.tyndall.ac.uk UN Environment Programme: www.unep.org/aea UN Development Programme: www.undp.org/sl; http://www.un.org.in/undmt; www.undp.org/cc/apf_outline.htm Relief web: www.reliefweb.int