Climate change impacts do not unravel in an isolated manner, they interact with prevailing socio-economic conditions and can have detrimental effects on human livelihoods.
Livelihoods are considered to be the assets required to have control over one's life. Deprivation of any of these resources would significantly reduce individual well-being and hinder adequate societal development. Livelihood conditions are defined as "the command an individual, family or other social group has over an income and/or bundles of resources that can be used or exchanged to satisfy its needs. This may involve information, cultural knowledge, social networks and legal rights as well as tools, land or other physical resources" (Wisner, Blaikie, Cannon, & Davis, 2004, p. 12).
The figure shows the elements of the livelihood conditions index. The elements are highly interrelated and changes in one element can affect other elements and even the whole system. The important aspects of livelihood conditions have been grouped into three sub-indices. Elements of the subsistence domain (blue bubbles) represent non-substitutable aspects, directly relevant to human health and survival. Elements of the Infrastructure domain are depicted in grey and the social structure in yellow.
The livelihood conditions index combines relevant elements of livelihoods into a measurable index. This allows measure changes of livelihood conditions and to identify strategies to improve these conditions. This is applicable in several contexts: the index can help in identifying adaptation strategies, which improve livelihood conditions, actively reduce climate impacts and reduce the risk of maladaptation. The Livelihood Conditions Index can also inform transition processes, by identifying development pathways which allow decoupling resource use and emissions from human well-being (link to food study).
Interpretation aid and possible limitations
The results should be seen as a general overview for getting an impression of how complex the interactions between natural scientific and socio-economic indicators are. To assess the current global conditions of livelihoods, general assumptions have to be made to depict levels of adequate livelihood conditions on a global level. Often trade and investments can significantly improve access to an important livelihood resource. The index has a special focus on development and therefore results for highly developed countries are sometimes surprising (e.g. results for Germany), as they do not take into account imports and trade, e.g. of virtual water (Hoekstra & Chapagain, 2006). The applied indicator of water scarcity, for example, is a widely used global indicator, which is very useful for country comparisons, but it has some shortcomings due to its simplicity (Falkenmark, 1997; Rijsberman, 2006).
Limitations in this context are the available data. The more detailed and highly resolved the data is spatially and temporally, the more precise the results become. Also, global thresholds and assumptions limit the results at global scale.
Method
To calculate the livelihood conditions index we used fuzzy logic, which allows to formalize linguistic concepts. It thus allows translating all input variables into a measure of adequacy. Adequacy in this context means that an element is sufficiently available on average to meet the basic needs of the population. For details see (Lissner, Reusser, & Kropp, 2013; Lissner, Reusser, Sullivan, & Kropp, 2013).
References
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