Towards a Formal Framework of Vulnerability to Climate Change

There is confusion regarding the notion of “vulnerability” in the climate change scientific community. Recent research has identified a need for formalisation, which would support accurate communication and the elimination of misunderstandings that result from the use of ambiguous terminology. Moreo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental modeling & assessment 2009-02, Vol.14 (1), p.1-16
Main Authors: Ionescu, Cezar, Klein, Richard J. T, Hinkel, Jochen, Kavi Kumar, K. S, Klein, Rupert
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation
Adaptive capacity
Applications of Mathematics
Applied mathematics
Climate change
Communication
Dictionaries
Earth and Environmental Science
Environment
Environmental monitoring
Formalisation
Game theory
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Math. Appl. in Environmental Science
Mathematical Modeling and Industrial Mathematics
Mathematical models
Natural language
Operations Research/Decision Theory
Statistical analysis
Studies
System theory
Vulnerability
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Summary:There is confusion regarding the notion of “vulnerability” in the climate change scientific community. Recent research has identified a need for formalisation, which would support accurate communication and the elimination of misunderstandings that result from the use of ambiguous terminology. Moreover, a formal framework of vulnerability is a prerequisite for computational approaches to its assessment. This paper presents an attempt at developing such a formal framework. We see vulnerability as a relative concept in the sense that accurate statements about vulnerability are possible only if one clearly specifies (1) the entity that is vulnerable, (2) the stimulus to which it is vulnerable and (3) the preference criteria to evaluate the outcome of the interaction between the entity and the stimulus. We relate the resulting framework to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change conceptualisation of vulnerability and two recent vulnerability studies.
ISSN:1420-2026
1573-2967
DOI:10.1007/s10666-008-9179-x