Journal article
Vulnerability and its discontents: the past, present, and future of climate change vulnerability research
Climatic Change, Vol.151(2), pp.189-203
2018
Abstract
The concept of vulnerability is well established in the climate change literature, underpinning significant research effort. The ability of vulnerability research to capture the complexities of climate-society dynamics has been increasingly questioned, however. In this paper, we identify, characterize, and evaluate concerns over the use of vulnerability approaches in the climate change field based on a review of peer-reviewed articles published since 1990 (n = 587). Seven concerns are identified: neglect of social drivers, promotion of a static understanding of human-environment interactions, vagueness about the concept of vulnerability, neglect of cross-scale interactions, passive and negative framing, limited influence on decision-making, and limited collaboration across disciplines. Examining each concern against trends in the literature, we find some of these concerns weakly justified, but others pose valid challenges to vulnerability research. Efforts to revitalize vulnerability research are needed, with priority areas including developing the next generation of empirical studies, catalyzing collaboration across disciplines to leverage and build on the strengths of divergent intellectual traditions involved in vulnerability research, and linking research to the practical realities of decision-making.
Details
- Title
- Vulnerability and its discontents: the past, present, and future of climate change vulnerability research
- Authors
- James D Ford (Author) - University of LeedsTristan Pearce (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Arts, Business and LawGraham McDowell (Author) - University of British Columbia, CanadaLea Berrang-Ford (Author) - University of Leeds, United KingdomJesse S Sayles (Author) - McGill University, CanadaElla Belfer (Author) - McGill University, Canada
- Publication details
- Climatic Change, Vol.151(2), pp.189-203
- Publisher
- Springer Netherlands
- Date published
- 2018
- DOI
- 10.1007/s10584-018-2304-1
- ISSN
- 0165-0009
- Copyright note
- Copyright © The Author(s) 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
- Organisation Unit
- University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Science, Technology and Engineering; Sustainability Research Cluster
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99450733402621
- Output Type
- Journal article
Metrics
10 File views/ downloads
269 Record Views
InCites Highlights
These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web Of Science research areas
- Environmental Sciences
- Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
Source: InCites