Keynote Presentations from the AVEC International Summer School, Peyresq, 14-27 September 2003

Speaker: Dagmar Schröter
Dagmar.Schroeter<at>pik-potsdam.de
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Telegrafenberg C4, 14473 Potsdam, Germany

Title of the talk: Introduction to the vulnerability concept (pdf: 3,5 MB)

Summary of the talk by a student: Students´ summary (pdf)

Introduction to the vulnerability concept

In the global change context, vulnerability is the likelihood that a specific coupled human-environment system may experience harm from exposure to stresses associated with alterations of societies and the biosphere, accounting for the process of adaptation. The term coupled human-environment system is used to highlight the fact that human and environmental systems are not separable entities but part of an integrated whole. Vulnerability assessments include not only the analysis of vulnerability but also the identification of specific options for stakeholders to reduce that vulnerability. Stakeholders are people and organizations with specific interests in the evolution of specific human-environment systems. Given these definitions, the general objective of vulnerability assessments is to inform the decision-making of specific stakeholders about options for adapting to the effects of global change. In this way vulnerability assessments link directly with the broader aim of sustainable development and sustainability science, where successful research is measured by not only pure scientific merit but also by the utility of the resulting products and recommendations. Vulnerability is typically described to be a function of three overlapping characteristics: exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. In the growing community of vulnerability science several methods are used to assess vulnerability for different systems, to different stressors and to different outcomes, ranging from loss of recreational opportunities in a landscape to loss of lives due to starvation. It is however agreed that to achieve their objective, vulnerability assessment should meet five criteria: (a) engage a flexible knowledge base from interdisciplinary research, as well as local, or indigenous knowledge from stakeholders, (b) be place-based in a global context, (c) include all relevant global change forcing factors and their interactions (e.g. atmospheric and climate change, nitrogen deposition, land use change), (d) explicitly consider the adaptive capacity of coupled human-environment systems, and (e) be prospective as well as historical. Eight steps for satisfying these criteria have been proposed: (1) define the study area in tandem with stakeholders, (2) get to know places over time, (3) hypothesize who is vulnerable to what, (4) develop a causal model of vulnerability, (5) find indicators for the components of vulnerability, (6) weight and combine the indicators, (7) project future vulnerability, and (8) communicate vulnerability creatively.

• O'Brien K, Sygna L, Haugen JE (2003) Vulnerable or resilient? A multi-scale assessment of climate impacts and vulnerability in Norway. Climatic Change (in press). (pdf: 800KB)


• Research and Assessment Systems for Sustainability Program (2001) Vulnerability and resilience for coupled human-environment systems: report of the research and assessment systems for sustainability program 2001 summer study. Research and Assessment Systems for Sustainability Program Discussion Paper Environment and Natural Resources Program, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. (pdf: 1MB)


• Schröter D, Polsky C, Patt AG (2003) Assessing vulnerabilities to the effects of global change: an eight step approach. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change (submitted). (pdf: 300KB)


• Turner BL, Matson P, McCarthy JJ, Corell RW, Christensen L, Eckley N, Hovelsrud-Broda G, Kasperson JX, Kasperson RE, Luers A, Martello ML, Mathiesen S, Polsky C, Pulsipher A, Schiller A, Tyler N (2003) Illustrating the coupled human-environment system for vulnerability analysis: three case studies. Proceedings National Academy of Sciences USA 100:8080-8085. (pdf: 600KB)


• Turner BL, Kasperson RE , Matson P, McCarthy JJ , Corell RW, Christensen L, Eckley N, Kasperson JX., Luers A, Martello M L, Polsky C, Pulsipher A, Schiller A (2003) A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proceedings National Academy of Sciences USA 100:8074-8079. (pdf: 500KB)

AVEC is a EU FP5 Concerted Action No. EVK2-2001-00074

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