Communities and change in the anthropocene: understanding social-ecological vulnerability and planning adaptations to multiple interacting exposures

Abstract

The majority of vulnerability and adaptation scholarship, policies and programs focus exclusively on climate change or global environmental change. Yet, individuals, communities and sectors experience a broad array of multi-scalar and multi-temporal, social, political, economic and environmental changes to which they are vulnerable and must adapt. While extensive theoreticaland increasingly empirical-work suggests the need to explore multiple exposures, a clear conceptual framework which would facilitate analysis of vulnerability and adaptation to multiple interacting socioeconomic and biophysical changes is lacking. This review and synthesis paper aims to fill this gap through presenting a conceptual framework for integrating multiple exposures into vulnerability analysis and adaptation planning. To support applications of the framework and facilitate assessments and comparative analyses of community vulnerability, we develop a comprehensive typology of drivers and exposures experienced by coastal communities. Our results reveal essential elements of a pragmatic approach for localscale vulnerability analysis and for planning appropriate adaptations within the context of multiple interacting exposures. We also identify methodologies for characterizing exposures and impacts, exploring interactions and identifying and prioritizing responses. This review focuses on coastal communities; however, we believe the framework, typology and approach will be useful for understanding vulnerability and planning adaptation to multiple exposures in various social-ecological contexts.

Catching sea cucumber fever in coastal communities: Conceptualizing the impacts of shocks versus trends on social-ecological systems

“…Through this theoretical lens, adaptive capacity represents the latent characteristics or attributes of a given system that enable it to respond adaptively in the face of stress, threats or perturbations (Engle, 2011;Smit and Wandel, 2006;Birk, 2014). Adaptive capacity is 'realized' through adaptive response (adaptation), as a system reacts to change or stress either by preparing in advance or else by adjusting, compensating and responding to effects as they unfold (Engle, 2011;Adger, 2006;Bennett et al, 2016). …”

“…An area of growing interest in particular is how multiple drivers of social-ecological change interact at varying spatial and temporal scales to influence the vulnerability of individuals, communities, and ecosystems at the local level (Bunce et al, 2010;Bennett et al, 2016;Leichenko and O'Brien, 2008). This scholarship on community vulnerability to "multiple stressors" or "multiple exposures" has centered on climate change, for example, trying to understand how climate stress interacts with economic globalization (O'Brien et al, 2004), disease epidemiology (Reid and Vogel, 2006), livelihood risks (Belliveua et al, 2006) or resource management policies (Bunce et al, 2010).…”

“…Despite frequent reference to the varying temporal scales at which drivers exert pressure on local systems (Bennett et al, 2016;Adger et al, 2012;Bunce et al, 2010), there has been little empirical research demonstrating how the timescales of different interacting stressors relate to community vulnerability. The role of temporal variation has often been masked by a dependence on different terms, each used to characterize or represent sources of SES change.…”

“…Coastal zones face some of the greatest biophysical impacts of climate change, including myriad consequences of rising sea levels (e.g., coastal erosion and sea water inundation) and increased variability of storms, drought, and other extreme weather events (Bunce et al, 2010). A combination of stressors such as ocean acidification and unsustainable global fishing practices has meant that coastal communities increasingly confront challenges related to gradually declining marine ecosystems, from decreased livelihood sustainability to food insecurity (Pauly and Maclean, 2003;Bennett et al, 2016). For many smaller and more remote coastal communities, declines in coastal and marine livelihoods are resulting in aging populations, as younger generations leave to pursue employment and education opportunities in urban centers (Ommer, 2007).…”

“…As a result of such processes, understanding the consequences of multi-scale, interacting social and environmental change presents an enduring challenge for researchers and decision makers engaged in researching vulnerability and adaptation in coastal communities (Bunce et al, 2010). While SES scholarship in this area has tended to focus on climate change (e.g., Cinner et al, 2015;Bunce et al, 2010;Julca and Paddison, 2010;Prno et al, 2011;Bardsley and Wiseman, 2013;Wise et al, 2014;O'Brien and Wolf, 2010) less attention has been given to understanding non-climatic anthropogenic drivers of change, such as broad demographic, socio-political, economic, cultural, or technological processes of change and their cross-scale impacts (Breslow, 2015;Bennett et al, 2016). In addition, there has been little differentiation between the drivers and impacts of fast versus slower forms of change among SES scholars.…”