Adaptation is necessary if we are to minimize risks associated with climate change impacts. Vulnerability and resilience are two important concepts in the literature on hazards and climate change but have been used in a variety of ways to investigate human interaction with a hazardous environment. The result is widespread adoption of the terms but confusion about their relationship and how best they can advance work on climate change adaptation. This paper critically reviews the different understandings of the concepts and how they relate, and then proposes a framework that integrates vulnerability and resilience in order to advance adaptation thinking, planning and implementation. The paper concludes with a description of how the framework will apply findings on unequal social vulnerability to inform adaptation options that increase resilience in coastal cities.
Quick response research conducted by social scientists in the aftermath of a disaster can reveal important findings about hazards and their impacts on communities. Research to collect perishable data, or data that will change or be lost over time, immediately following disaster has been supported for decades by two programs in the United States, amassing a collection of quick response studies and an associated research culture. That culture is currently being challenged to better address power imbalances between researchers and disaster-affected participants. Until recently, Canada has not had a quick response grant program. In order to survey the state of knowledge and draw from it in helping to shape the new program in Canada, this article systematically analyzes the body of research created by the two US programs. The results reveal a wide-ranging literature: the studies are theoretically, conceptually, topically, and methodologically quite unique to one another. This diversity might appropriately reflect the nature of disasters, but the finding that many studies are not building on previous quick response research and other insights indicate opportunities for how a new grant program in Canada can contribute to growing a robust subdiscipline of disaster research.
Insurance coverage of damage caused by overland flooding is currently not available to Canadian homeowners. As flood disaster losses and water damage claims both trend upward, insurers in Canada are considering offering residential flood coverage in order to properly underwrite the risk and extend their business. If private flood insurance is introduced in Canada, it will have implications for the current regime of public flood management and for residential vulnerability to flood hazards. This paper engages many of the competing issues surrounding the privatization of flood risk by addressing questions about whether flood insurance can be an effective tool in limiting exposure to the hazard and how it would exacerbate already unequal vulnerability. A case study investigates willingness to pay for flood insurance among residents in Metro Vancouver and how attitudes about insurance relate to other factors that determine residential vulnerability to flood hazards. Findings indicate that demand for flood insurance is part of a complex, dialectical set of determinants of vulnerability.
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