A new method for analysing socio-ecological patterns of vulnerability

Abstract

This paper presents a method for the analysis of socio-ecological patterns of vulnerability of people being at risk of losing their livelihoods as a consequence of global environmental change. This method fills a gap in methodologies for vulnerability analysis by providing generalizations of the factors that shape vulnerability in specific socio-ecological systems and showing their spatial occurrence. The proposed method consists of four steps that include both quantitative and qualitative analyses. To start, the socio-ecological system exposed to global environmental changes that will be studied needs to be determined. This could, for example, be farmers in drylands, urban populations in coastal areas and forest-dependent people in the tropics. Next, the core dimensions that shape vulnerability in the socio-ecological system of interest need to be defined. Subsequently, a set of spatially explicit indicators that reflect these core dimensions is selected. Cluster analysis is used for grouping the indicator data. The clusters found, referred to as vulnerability profiles, describe different typical groupings of conditions and processes that create vulnerability in the socio-ecological system under study, and their spatial distribution is provided. Interpretation and verification of these profiles is the last step in the analysis. We illustrate the application of this method by analysing the patterns of vulnerability of (smallholder) farmers in drylands. We identify eight distinct vulnerability profiles in drylands that together provide a global overview of different processes taking place and sub-national detail of their distribution. By overlaying the spatial distribution of these profiles with specific outcome indicators such as conflict occurrence or migration, the method can also be used to understand these phenomena better. Analysis of vulnerability profiles will in a next step be used as a basis for identifying responses to reduce vulnerability, for example, to facilitate the transfer of best practices to reduce vulnerability between different places.

Climate risk and food security in Mali: A historical perspective on adaptation

“…These considerations are synthesized using a k‐means cluster analysis [ Hartigan and Wong , ; Sietz et al ., ; Kok et al ., ] of households that combines the two variables depicting food security, that is, food consumption score and coping strategy index (Figure ), the variable associated with availability, that is, percent of food consumed that comes from own production (Figure a), the two variables associated with access, that is, number of economic activities (Figure b) and period of most significant food purchase, and two variables characterizing expenditure, and indirect wealth, that is, per capita expenditures on nonfood items, and percent of food expenditures on total (see Section 2 for details on the methodology and its application). The food consumption score can take on values to a maximum of 112, with values less than 21 classified as poor (food insecure), between 21 and 35 as borderline, and higher than 35 as satisfactory.…”

Characterizing social–ecological units to inform biodiversity conservation in cultural landscapes

“…Methods to do so need to simplify the complex nature of social-ecological systems, but at the same time preserve locally important contextual information (L€ udeke et al, 2004). This approach has been applied previously at the scale of Europe (Levers et al, 2016), for patterns of global land use (V aclav ık et al, 2013) and global change (L€ udeke et al, 2004) and to assess the vulnerability of social-ecological systems (Kok et al, 2016). This approach has been applied previously at the scale of Europe (Levers et al, 2016), for patterns of global land use (V aclav ık et al, 2013) and global change (L€ udeke et al, 2004) and to assess the vulnerability of social-ecological systems (Kok et al, 2016).…”

Is Land Fragmentation Facilitating or Obstructing Adoption of Climate Adaptation Measures in Ethiopia?

“…Agriculture in developing countries is vulnerable to the increasing impacts of climate change, which are exacerbating food and livelihood insecurities [1,2]. Adaptation to climate change is the only strategy available for farmers.…”