Jeanne X. Kasperson

A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science

Global environmental change and sustainability science increasingly recognize the need to address the consequences of changes taking place in the structure and function of the biosphere. These changes raise questions such as: Who and what are vulnerable to the multiple environmental changes underway, and where? Research demonstrates that vulnerability is registered not by exposure to hazards (perturbations and stresses) alone but also resides in the sensitivity and resilience of the system experiencing such hazards. This recognition requires revisions and enlargements in the basic design of vulnerability assessments, including the capacity to treat coupled human–environment systems and those linkages within and without the systems that affect their vulnerability. A vulnerability framework for the assessment of coupled human–environment systems is presented.

Illustrating the coupled human- environment system for vulnerability analysis: Three case studies

The vulnerability framework of the Research and Assessment Systems for Sustainability Program explicitly recognizes the coupled human–environment system and accounts for interactions in the coupling affecting the systems responses to hazards and its vulnerability. This paper illustrates the usefulness of the vulnerability framework through three case studies: the tropical southern Yucatán, the arid Yaqui Valley of northwest Mexico, and the pan-Arctic. Together, these examples illustrate the role of external forces in reshaping the systems in question and their vulnerability to environmental hazards, as well as the different capacities of stakeholders, based on their access to social and biophysical capital, to respond to the changes and hazards. The framework proves useful in directing attention to the interacting parts of the coupled system and helps identify gaps in information and understanding relevant to reducing vulnerability in the systems as a whole.

Risk and criticality: Trajectories of regional environmental degradation

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The Social Amplification and Attenuation of Risk

Risk is a complex phenomenon that involves both biophysical attributes and social dimensions. Existing assessment and management approaches often fail to consider risk in its full complexity and its social context. The concept of the social amplification and attenuation of risk provides an approach that recognizes that how social institutions and structures process a risk will shape greatly its effects upon society and the responses of management institutions and people. Examples of both amplification and attenuation are provided from recent risk experience.

Regions at risk : comparisons of threatened environments

Critical environmental regions - concepts, distinctions and issues Amazonia the Aral Sea basin the Nepal middle mountains the Ukambani region of Kenya the Llano Estacado of the American Southern High Plains the Basin of Mexico the North Sea the Ordos Plateau of China the eastern Sunderland region of South-East Asia comparisons and conclusions.

ASSESSING THE VULNERABILITY OF COASTAL COMMUNITIES TO EXTREME STORMS: THE CASE OF REVERE, MA., USA

Climate change may affect the frequency, intensity, and geographic distribution of severe coastal storms. Concurrent sea-level rise would raise the baseline of flooding during such events. Meanwhile, social vulnerability factors such as poverty and disability hinder the ability to cope with storms and storm damage. While physical changes are likely to remain scientifically uncertain into the foreseeable future, the ability to mitigate potential impacts from coastal flooding may be fostered by better understanding the interplay of social and physical factors that produce human vulnerability. This study does so by integrating the classic causal model of hazards with social, environmental, and spatial dynamics that lead to the differential ability of people to cope with hazards. It uses Census data, factor analysis, data envelopment analysis, and floodplain maps to understand the compound social and physical vulnerability of coastal residents in the city of Revere, MA, USA.

Two types of global environmental change: Definitional and spatial-scale issues in their human dimensions☆

Abstract Clarification of several issues in the human dimensions of global environmental change is essential to the creation of a balanced research agenda. Global environmental change includes both systemic changes that operate globally through the major systems of the geosphere-biosphere, and cumulative changes that represent the global accumulation of localized changes. An understanding of the human dimen sions of change requires attention to both types through research that integrates findings from spatial scales ranging from the global to the local. A regional or meso-scale focus represents a particularly promising avenue of approach.

Perilous progress. Managing the hazards of technology

This book presents a comparative perspective of technological risks confronting contemporary society. The authors provide a framework for thinking about hazards and hazard management, for measuring the consequences of technological risk for society, and for assessing the appropriateness of various hazard management techniques.

Methods for Analyzing and Comparing Technological Hazards

Each year an estimated 17–31% of the U.S. mortality rate is associated with undesired side effects of technology (Harriss, Hohenemser, and Kates 1978). The productivity loss from technology-related illness, death, and pollution is equivalent to 3–6% of the gross national product (GNP). When combined with the cost of private and public sector efforts to prevent and mitigate such losses, the undesired side effects of technology amount to 7–12% of the GNP (Tuller 1985). Even so, these estimates of the societal burden of technological hazards are incomplete, and do not include, for example, a number of newly recognized hazards.