1. Vulnerability According to Frank

2. WAS*IS Summer 2007 Vulnerability Talk 3 Major Lineages in Hazards Research (Eakin and Luers 2006) Risks/Hazards –Looks at proximity and likelihood issues ex: Do I live in a floodplain? What are the odds of a flood? Political Ecology –How a communities ‘adaptive strategies’ make them more or less vulnerable ex: subsistence farmers v. coffee farmers Resilience –Ecological/Systems Perspective- How and why does a system change? What is it’s capacity to respond to change (this one is a toughie…)

3. WAS*IS Summer 2007 Vulnerability Talk Vulnerability to Famine Malthus (1798)- too many people, not enough food –Food balance equations Sen (1982) - plenty of food, just can’t get to it –‘entitlements Deveraux et al (2006?)- it’s the governments fault –Institutional failures

4. Livelihood Zones (LZ’s) reflect Pol. Ecology-resilience approach to Vulnerability mapping Useful concept Shock thresholds developed for each zone type (ideally…) Difficult to update and compare across countries

5. WAS*IS Summer 2007 Vulnerability Talk Integrated Spatial Analysis = ‘A stinking mess’ Livelihood Zones do not equal decision units How to combine datasets from different spatial- temporal resolutions into a concise easy- to-use product BIG problem in vulnerability mapping or any integrated physical/social analysis project

6. WAS*IS Summer 2007 Vulnerability Talk Food for Thought Do different definitions of vulnerability really matter to the on-the-ground decision maker? If you can’t measure it, how/should you incorporate it into the decision making process?