Assessment of vulnerability to climate change using indicators: a meta‐analysis of the literature

Abstract

Climate change vulnerability assessment (CCVA) can inform adaptation policy and help in incorporating climate futures in planning. The literature on CCVA stems from a number of research paradigms (e.g., risk assessment, natural disaster management, and urban planning), therefore making it difficult to extract major directions and methodologies from this body of work. A large number of assessments are based, partly or totally, on indicators which bring up specific methodological problems and constraints. In this study, first, we discuss the most important methodological challenges facing indicator-based vulnerability assessment (IBVA) based on a set of key conceptual papers in the field. Second, we conduct a meta-analysis of a representative sample of peer-reviewed IBVA studies, to identify how current research on IBVA is engaging with these challenges. We attempt to elicit major thematic and methodological trends in this corpus with specific focus on issues related to geographical and temporal scales, aggregation, and nonlinearity. We find that health of ecosystems and biodiversity (28%), freshwater quantity and quality (12%), and public health (10%) have attracted the highest number of studies. Less than a third of the papers in our sample give some consideration to uncertainty and nonlinearity. Assessments typically use aggregation methods that are based on the Multiple Attribute Utility Theory despite the fact that IBVA rarely satisfies the theoretical requirements of this approach. A small percentage of IBVA studies critically scrutinize prevalent assessment methodologies or attempt to develop new ones, despite the raised questions in key theoretical papers about its methodological aspects.

Comparison of Flood Vulnerability Assessments to Climate Change by Construction Frameworks for a Composite Indicator

“…As in previous studies [28][29][30][31][32][33], this study has evaluated the influence of construction frameworks on the composite indicator outcomes and additionally proposed the proper scheme by comparison with a flood hazard map for the study site. However, this study has the following limitations.…”

Reconciling Drought Vulnerability Assessment Using a Convergent Approach: Application to Water Security in the Elqui River Basin, North-Central Chile

“…Contextual vulnerability of water security to drought was calculated using the composite indicator methodology [13,14,47,48]. To this end, a total of 27 indicators (Table 3) were set up/collected/preselected.…”

“…Although the conceptual framework in this field has incorporated new theoretical frameworks in recent decades [11][12][13][14][15][16], it is possible to highlight two main paradigms that have defined the way in which academia has conceptualized and operationalized vulnerability [15,[17][18][19]: the contextual framework (also known as start-point vulnerability) and the outcome framework (also known as end-point vulnerability). In the former case, vulnerability is conceptualized around intrinsic factors-or characteristics-of the impacted system and is operationalized, broadly, in terms of so-called composite indicators [14]. In the second case, vulnerability is conceptualized as a functional relationship between the stressor and the response of the impacted system.…”

Using a novel climate–water conflict vulnerability index to capture double exposures in Lake Chad

“…This is often the case for social stressors driven by human conflict (Mason et al 2011). However, vulnerability indicators are now widely applied to account for interacting shocks and stressors and in particular to enhance the communicative power of vulnerability assessment findings (Tonmoy et al 2014). Indeed, growing interest in understanding the forces that shape the state of affairs in vulnerable countries has made the use of vulnerability indicators relevant in vulnerability hotspot mapping (Hinkel 2011;Abson et al 2012).…”