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Assessing patterns of vulnerability, adaptive capacity and resilience across urban centers Patricia Romero Lankao National Center for Atmospheric Research [email protected] and John L. Tribbia University of Colorado-Boulder [email protected]

Summary: Can repeated patterns of vulnerability and resilience be identified across urban areas? This question is addressed using a conceptualization of vulnerability developed by the climate community and applying a model-centered meta-analysis approach of 64 case studies on cities and vulnerability. In this meta-analysis the authors pull a minimum set of models or frameworks to go beyond existing case studies, looking for systematic patterns across the frameworks and describe patterns of urban vulnerability across and within urban centers. This paper illustrates that some components and determinants of vulnerability hold across urban cases. More specifically, the authors argue some determinants of vulnerability are consistent across specific situations, but also recognize that urban vulnerability is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon determined by a number of concurrent factors. Keywords: urban, cities, vulnerability, climate change, meta-analysis

Assessing patterns of vulnerability, adaptive capacity and resilience across urban centers Fifth Urban Research Symposium 2009

Assessing patterns of vulnerability, adaptive capacity and resilience across urban centers 1. The problem: drawing patterns of urban vulnerability/adaptive capacity Urban centers are home to a large proportion of the world’s population, economic activity, and physical infrastructure that are at risk from floods, storms, landslides, heat waves, droughts and other climate-weather-related phenomena. Climate change is expected to exacerbate these impacts on cities around the world (Satterthwaite et al., 2007). A small, but growing number of studies exist on urban vulnerability and resilience t0 both “natural hazards” and climate change (Pelling, 2003; Hunt and Watkiss, 2007; Satterthwaite et al., 2007). Yet, existing case studies are based on conflicting theories and paradigms (Adger, 2006; Eakin and Luers, 2006; Füssel, 2007; Ionescu et al., 2009). Some scholars argue that the diversity of approaches is necessary in order to address the full complexity of the concept, and that existing frameworks are, in large part, complementary (Adger, 2006; Eakin and Luers, 2006). Another common tenet of the scholarship on vulnerability is that (urban) vulnerability depends on the nature of the system and the type of hazard in question (Brooks et al., 2003). Paraphrasing Füssel (2006), it could be said that the factors that make the city of Lusaka in Zambia vulnerable to climate hazards such as rain are not the same to those that make urban areas in a wealthy nation (e.g., USA) vulnerable to intense episodes of precipitation. Poorer groups in Lusaka are vulnerable for lacking drainage and good quality housing, and for settling on sites at risk from flooding, whereas the determinants of vulnerability in the USA might relate to the quality of physical infrastructure and land use planning. Urban vulnerability, in short, depends critically on context. Nevertheless, a question remains unsolved: is it possible to identify repeated patterns of vulnerability and resilience across urban areas? We address this question by using the conceptualization of vulnerability developed by the climate community (see Figure 1) and applying a model-centered meta-analysis approach of 64 case studies on cities and vulnerability. We argue that it is possible to draw some causal relations or patterns of vulnerability across urban centers. Precisely because vulnerability describes a complex and dynamic reality, and different theoretical frameworks have been developed to address diverse components of the concept, existing studies result in at least three main narratives on the causal mechanisms defining a vulnerable or resilient urban area or population: urban vulnerability as an outcome of hazards acting upon the area under study, as an inherent property or specific conditions of urban areas, and as socio-ecologically determined lack of resilience.

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Figure 1: Graphical representation of vulnerability to climate-weather hazards Hazard

Exposure

Sensitivity

• Individual

• Individual and collective assets Potential impacts

Adaptive capacity

• Institutional (political) • Institutional (social) • Environmental

Vulnerability

• ….

Key Positive impact (P) Negative impact (N) P or N impact

Adaptation (response)

Note: the components in this graphical representation of the conceptualization of vulnerability are represented with black boxes and the determinants with the blue box. The paper starts with a short characterization of concepts and methods (section 2). It describes how the components and factors defining urban vulnerability/resilience are integrated within the main lineages of vulnerability research (section 3) resulting in different narratives on the patterns of causation defining an urban vulnerability situation. We close the paper with a short discussion of the main findings and conclusions of our meta-analysis (section 4). 2. Meta-frameworks: a tool to compare specific vulnerabilities across urban areas 2.1 Concepts Many attempts have been made to assess existing conceptualizations of the vulnerability of socio-ecological systems (Cutter et al., 2003; O’Brien et al., 2005; Adger, 2006; Eakin and Luers, 2006; Füssel, 2006; and Ionescu et al., 2009). Fewer have focused on urban areas (Hunt and Watkiss, 2007; Satterthwaite et al., 2007). This is surprising when one considers the fact that the world is becoming more and more urban and that cities 1 are 1

The terms “city” and “urban centre” are often used interchangeably – but they are not the same Satterthwaite (2007). The percentage of people living in cities is considerably lower than the proportion living in urban centers, as a significant proportion of the urban population lives in urban centers that are too small to be called cities. Thousands of settlements around the world are classified by their national governments as urban, yet they lack the economic, administrative or political status that would normally be considered as criteria for classification as a city. In many nations, official definitions ensure that urban 3


hubs of development and concentrate populations, economic activities and infrastructures at risk from the impacts of climate change. Yet it is also understandable considering the complexity of urban vulnerability driven by a) the array of hazards urban centers are faced with; b) the different units of analysis (a city, a population, or a sector, e.g. water system) studies of urban vulnerability focus on; c) the specificities of urban development, socio-environmental change and governance across cities; and d) the way in which a), b) and c) result in common and specific social, physical and built environment characteristics that turn a city and its populations more or less vulnerable to climate hazards. These studies tend to portray vulnerability in negative terms, as the possibility to be harmed, i.e. as the degree to which a system 2 is susceptible to and is unable to cope with adverse effects of a single, or of several hazards or stresses (e.g. climate change, political instability, etc). The concept of vulnerability captures a complex and dynamic reality. Besides referring to the possibility that something (e.g. a city) is negatively affected by something (a hazard or stress), vulnerability is also a relative property defining the capacity to cope with that stressor as well. Therefore, vulnerability cannot be defined by the hazard alone, nor can it be represented by strictly by internal properties of the system being stressed. It must be looked at as an interaction of these factors and includes three elements: exposure, sensitivity and capacity to adapt (Manuel-Navarrete et al., 2007, Ionescu et al., 2008). Exposure is the nature and degree to which a system experiences a stress or hazard. The characteristics of these hazards include their magnitude, frequency, duration and spatial extent (Adger, 2006; IPCC, 2007). Hazards can be one-off extreme events of short duration (no more than a few minutes, hours or days), often striking with little warning. Examples include heat-waves and storms. Besides those, urban areas are faced with a series of slow-onset events (e.g. sea-level rise, increasing temperatures or decreasing precipitation) as well as a range of subtle, ‘everyday risks’ that are the product of a variety of stress mechanisms (e.g. inundation of low-lying coastal zones, reduction in water levels of aquifers and river catchments, desiccation, and salinization of the water table, see Partner et al., 2007). Sensitivity is the degree to which a system is modified or affected by perturbations. Adaptive capacity is the ability of a system to evolve in order to accommodate hazards or, in the case of societies, introduce policy changes to expand the range of variability with which it can cope (Cutter et al., 2003, O’Brien et al., 2005, Gallopin, 2006, Manuelcenters include all settlements with 20,000 or more inhabitants. However “governments differ in what smaller settlements they include as urban centers – from those that include as urban all settlements with a few hundred inhabitants, to those that only include settlements with 20,000 or more inhabitants. This limits the accuracy of international comparisons of urbanization levels because most nations have a large part of their populations living in settlements with populations in this range of 500 to 20,000 inhabitants” (Satterthwaite 2007). 2 The system of analysis is any unit that is potentially threatened by a hazard (e.g. storm, heat-wave or other hazard). Examples include a coupled human–environment system (which becomes more pervasive as humans change the balance and function of natural systems across the globe), a population group, an economic sector, a geographical region, or a natural system (Füssel 2006). 4


Navarrete et al., 2007). Vulnerability is influenced by the build up or erosion of the elements of social-ecological resilience that determine the ability of an urban center and its populations to absorb stresses, and maintain essentially the same structure, function and feedbacks (Adger, 2006). As such, socio-ecological resilience and sustainability depend not only on the state of a complex system such as a city but also on the attributes that allow it to adapt to changes and absorb stresses (Gallopin, 2006). Resilience can be analyzed at two interrelated levels. The first reflects the degree to which an urban center is “capable of self-organization (versus lack of organization or organization forced by external factors) and the degree to which the system can build capacity for learning and adaptation” (Adger et al., 2005: 1036). The second reveals the capabilities, assets (both natural and social) and activities urban dwellers require to maintain their livelihoods – which are sustainable when they allow urban populations to cope with and recover from stresses and shocks, maintain their capability and assets, and provide sustainable livelihood opportunities for the next generation (Sanders, 2000). A useful measure of resilience and sustainability should not only describe the current state of the system under analysis (city, urban populations), but should also provide an early warning of problems by reflecting the ability of the system to absorb stresses (see also Gallopin, 2006). 2.2 Methods In this paper we will examine whether repeated or generalizable patterns of vulnerability and resilience exist across urban areas. In doing so, we will attempt to find a minimum set of models or frameworks that can be applied in the case studies under review, to look for systematic patterns across the frameworks and define some generalizable causes of urban vulnerability situations with the ultimate goal of informing decision making aimed at enhancing urban resilience. A common approach to go beyond case studies has been to distinguish between specific and generic determinants of vulnerability (Brooks et al., 2005) and to build indicator frameworks (i.e. proxy indicators and indexes) that are often aggregated into vulnerability indexes at a national, regional or city level within a country (see also Yohe and Tol, 2000; Cutter et al., 2003; Brooks et al., 2005). Yet notwithstanding its usefulness and wide application, indicator-based methods face some limitations (Manuel-Navarrete et al., 2007). With some exceptions (e.g. Brooks et al., 2005), the process of indicators selection is often supported by untested assumptions about the determinants of vulnerability. Lack of data at various scales (especially in developing countries) leads to inaccurate calculations. The fact that vulnerability is determined by a diversity of hazards and underlying determinants operating at different scales should prevent analysts from seeking standard indicator frameworks. This suggests the need to look for alternative frameworks, such as the syndrome approach (Manuel-Navarrete et al., 2007) and model centered analysis of case studies such as meta-analysis (Rudel, 2008). The “syndrome” approach refers to a typical co-occurrence of symptoms describing complex and dynamic phenomena. In contrast to causal networks of specific situations, 5


syndromes are “repeatable patterns that can manifest in different parts of the world” (Manuel-Navarrete et al., 2006). Meta-analyses are comparative studies of literatures that have grown around questions of global environmental change (Young et al., 2006). They involve the pooling of data that quantitatively investigate whether causal relations described in individual papers (e.g. drivers of land use changes, determinants of food security) hold more largely across a broader – or even entire – literature (Misselhorne, 2005; Young et al., 2006). For the purpose of this paper, meta-analysis will be defined as a systematic attempt to investigate patterns of urban vulnerability across a set of studies (Rudel, 2008). We draw on Misselhorne (2005) and Rudel (2008) to a) Use an organizing question, namely what are the components and determinants of a vulnerable/resilient situation across urban areas? With regard to some of the components of vulnerability (Figure 1), what are the hazards, the system of analysis and the impacts analyzed by the case studies? (See table 1). As for determinants, what factors explain (differential/common) vulnerabilities/capacities to adapt? Following on Kates and Wilbanks (2003), we distinguish between direct determinants (i.e. independent of another factor) and underlying processes (i.e. those acting through another listed factor). b) Develop a meta-framework, distilled from both the vulnerability literature and from the review of 64 case studies. The goal is three-fold: to define the main approaches to urban vulnerability; to determine the components of the metaframework these approaches or lineages address; and to examine the narratives they develop in order to define – and tally – the key determinants of vulnerability. We also outline the underlying processes defining an urban vulnerable situation. The goal of this effort is both to find out whether it is possible to draw some causal relations or patterns of vulnerability across urban centers, and to illustrate that the narratives resulting from the three lineages of scholarship differ in the patterns of causation they draw. Yet they can be complementary and are necessary to address the full complexity of urban vulnerability. 3. Components, determinants and approaches to urban vulnerability: a metaframework We developed a framework illustrating the key components, determinants and outcomes of vulnerability (see Figure 1), which were extracted both from vulnerability literature and a review of 64 case studies. The tabulation of components in the case studies indicates that most of them are specific or comparative city-wide studies focusing mainly on five hazards and four impacts, which receive 81.4 and 70 per cent of the attention respectively (see Table 1).

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Table 1: Three components of vulnerability in the meta-analysis Hazard

No. Heat Waves/Stress/UHIE 21 Storm Surge/Hurricanes 19 Sea Level Rise 11 Drought 10 Changes in Temperature 8 Air Pollution 7 Changes in Precipitation 3 Saline Intrusion 1 5 Subsidence Totals

85

% 25 22 13 12 9.4 8.2 3.5 1.2 5.9

System/Spatial No. % Reference No. % Mortality 19 23 City 20 28 21 30 Morbidity 5 6.2 Cities 9 13 Damages to Houses a 10 12 Area within city Flooding 13 16 City/hinterland 5 7 Economic Loss 7 8.6 Built environment 4 6 Morbidity 4 4.9 Water systems 5 7 Loss of Wetlands 3 3.7 Coastal areas 6 8 Beach erosion 4 4.9 Demographic sect 1 1 Water availability 15 19 Drainage system 1 1.2 Impact

100 Totals

81 100 Totals

71 100

Source: authors’ own tabulation of vulnerability studies cited in paper (2009) We then examined each of the 64 case studies to see whether the causal relations described in each of the cases studies about urban vulnerability also hold more generally across case studies. The tabulation of determinants mentioned in the case studies indicates that eleven factors make about 70% of the determinants of vulnerability, and six make almost 50%. Those six are age, exposure to hazard, access to/quality of infrastructure, income, location, and access to/quality of services. This confirms that urban vulnerability is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon determined by a number of concurrent factors.

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Table 2: Determinants of vulnerability in the meta-analysis Determinants Individual

Tallies % of total 46 21.9 Age (old) Age (enfants) Gender (women) Ethnicity Migrant Pre-existing health problems Individual assets 33 15.7 Income, poverty Employment Education Housing (quality, access) Technology Collective assets 58 27.6 Concentrated affluence, stability Location (both wealthy/poor) Services (access, quality) Infrastructure (access, quality) Technology 33 15.7 Knowledge (access, quality) Institutional (political) Policy responses, governance practices Urban planning Clientelistic/partisan control of land Political power Institutional (social) 12 5.7 Social networks Community base organizations Others (church, role models) Exposure 28 13.3 Hazard Environmental conditions Environmental deterioration Totals 210 100.0

Tallies % of total 21 10.0 7 3.3 5 2.4 8 3.8 2 1.0 3 1.4 16 7.6 6 2.9 2 1.0 7 3.3 2 1.0 7 3.3 15 7.1 15 7.1 18 8.6 3 1.4 9 4.3 10 4.8 9 4.3 3 1.4 2 1.0 8 3.8 2 1.0 2 1.0 18 8.6 5 2.4 5 2.4 210 100.0

Source: authors’ own tabulation of vulnerability studies cited in paper (2009) Our literature review also revealed, however, that many of the studies tend to focus on a limited set of components and determinants of vulnerability (Figure 1), depending on the lineage to which the studies belong. Some conceive vulnerability as an outcome (physical vulnerability) mainly given by exposure to hazards, thus focusing on exposure to hazards, sensitivity, potential impacts and adaptation. Others tend to view it as a property of the affected system (inherent vulnerability), thus concentrating on the socioeconomic and institutional factors explaining different vulnerabilities/adaptive capacities across and within cities (Figure 1). Still others see it as both, the integration of exposure to multiple stresses and vulnerability of coupled human-environment systems with diverse and complex linkages (socio-ecological resilience, see Turner et al., 2003a, and 2003b). Note that this classification of lineages is a synthesizing tool, which sometimes omits the cross fertilization and overlap of ideas and methods across lineages that has taken place in recent years (see Adger, 2006).

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3.1 Urban vulnerability as an outcome Studies that focus on physical vulnerabilities, also called risk-hazard (Turner et al., 2002), top-down (Van Aalst et al., 2006) or impact assessments, view vulnerability of an urban center, its populations and built environment as an outcome, mainly determined by the nature of the hazard they are exposed to. Our review found at least two groups of studies within this lineage (30 case studies): sensitivity analysis and top-down impacts assessments. The former tend to focus on the relationships between an outcome (mortality/morbidity, changes in water availability) and such hazards as heat stress, air pollution and droughts (Smoyer et al., 2000; Rainham et al., 2005; Vandertorren et al., 2004; O’Neill et al., 2005; Grize et al., 2005; Conti et al., 2005; and Bell et al., 2008; Carter et al., 2000). Such broad categories as the city, or the urban water system, are their unit of analysis, while their temporal focus varies from short-term extreme episodes (e.g., 2003 heat-wave in Europe) to spans across decades. For this approach, a key determinant of vulnerability is given by the characteristics of the hazard(s) urban populations are exposed to, i.e., by their intensity and duration, their timing (e.g. a heat-wave early in the summer has more impact than one later in the summer), their frequency (consecutive events are more stressful than 1-day ones, see Smoyer et al., 2000), and how they interact with each other (e.g. the combination of weather stress with poor air quality and urban heat islands can have more adverse health effects) (O’Neill et al., 2005 and Knowton et al., 2007). Equally important can be how these hazards interact with other stresses (e.g. droughts with increases in water demand). To a lesser extent, other determinants of vulnerability addressed by this group are age (because elderly are especially sensitive to heat), health status (respiratory and circulatory conditions may be aggravated by heat), and the educational status and gender of the exposed individuals (O’Neil et al., 2005, Bell et al., 2008). Some of these studies address the role of adaptation options such as air conditioning and well organized emergency plans in reducing the sensitivity of urban populations to heat and air pollution (Davis et al., 2003 and Smoyer et al., 2000a). The approach of top-down assessments begins with a scaled-down version of climate change scenarios derived from Global Climate Models. This is ‘applied’ to some specific exposure unit of analysis – e.g. a city, its infrastructure, a group of (coastal) cities. The goal is to model how such parameters (hazards) as temperature increase, changes in precipitation and sea level rise will evolve in the future (usually going well into 2080). Future climate impacts of a particular scenario on a single unit, or a set of units of analysis are modeled (e.g. urban infrastructures, coastal wetlands), and adaptation options under unknown future socioeconomic circumstances are explored, to see how those impacts can be reduced (Rosenzweig and Solecki eds., 2001; Nicholls, 2003; Kirshen et al., 2007; Kirshen et al., in press; Nichols et al., 2007; Blake et al., 2000; Rosensweig et al., 2005).

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One classical study of this type, Rosenzweig and Solecki eds. (2001) found, for instance, that, in the future, New York will be at risk from such climate impacts as more frequent floods, brought on by reductions in the flood return period, droughts, beach erosion, the urban heat-island effect, certain vector-born diseases, and an increased use of energy (because increases in summer cooling will outweigh decreases in winter needs). The study explored the following adaptation options: physical modifications to infrastructures, changes in decision making practices, disincentives to coastal development, and a regional climate awareness program. Impacts assessments have made significant contributions to the understanding of the nature and characteristics of the hazards urban centers and populations are and will be faced with; of how sensitive cities, their infrastructures and populations are and will be. Furthermore, by exploring how the hazards might be affected by different levels of warming resulting from different socioeconomic scenarios, impacts assessments help address two key questions for the climate change scholarship: Taking into account adaptation and mitigation responses, what are the likely and unavoidable climate impacts on urban areas over the 21st century? How much adaptation do we need between now and a projected future date (e.g. 2030) to cope with ‘inevitable’ climate change? (See for instance Palutikof et al., 2009). However, impact assessments only address some components of the full array of significant dimensions and determinants of urban vulnerability (exposure to hazards, sensitivity, potential impacts and adaptation options, see Figure 1). Impact assessments for instance, do not address such determinants of adaptive capacity as whether, and to what extent the technological, institutional and management options are available to urban populations; whether urban decision makers and populations are receptive to adaptation options and motivated to make the necessary changes; whether they possess the necessary skills, knowledge, awareness to want to adapt and to be able to do so and how their potential adaptation choices are constrained by the social, economic, political, and environmental circumstances in which they live and operate (see Van Aalst et al., 2006). . Furthermore, such assessments do not address whether policy makers are vested with enough decision making power and institutional capacity to implement meaningful and effective policies. 3.2 Inherent urban vulnerability Some of these questions have been addressed by the research community focusing on inherent vulnerability (26 papers). This lineage views vulnerability as a state or condition of the system of analysis – city, its populations, etc. – driven by broader underlying socioeconomic and institutional factors (e.g. pathways of urban development, structural adjustment policies). The notions of entitlements and capabilities (Sen, 1990) have served as foundation to much of this lineage and have provided a theoretical conduit to research on development (particularly on poverty alleviation and livelihoods, 3 see Eakin and 3

“A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (both natural and social) and activities required for a means of living” (Sanders, 2000: 18). Within the livelihoods approach hazards and the threat of disaster are implicit in everyday life. At a household level, assets buffer households against shocks and stresses. Conversely, when a disaster occurs assets are “swept away”, directly affecting a household. Livelihood 10


Luers, 2006). Many underlying processes that may create vulnerability have been defined or articulated by this research community: a) direct determinants of vulnerability such as inequalities in assets distribution and access, in livelihoods; b) the amount of control, or the lack thereof, that urban dwellers and households can exert over choices, options and policies; and c) historical patterns of social marginalization and domination (see Klinenberg 1999; Pelling 1997 and 2003; Satterthwaite et al., 2007). This tradition seeks to answer the questions of what urban areas are vulnerable, who within a city is vulnerable, and how and why particular populations are vulnerable. By doing so, it helps discover, hence, common and diverse patterns in both direct and underlying socioeconomic and institutional determinants of urban vulnerability. Two groups of vulnerable urban areas can be identified in the scholarship belonging to this lineage, and three main reasons are given as to why they are so, namely locational, developmental and governance factors. Note that location is also, for scholars working within the impact assessments lineage, a key determinant of urban vulnerability (Nicholls 1995; Nicholls and Hoozemans, 1996; Nicholls, 2003; Kirshen et al., 2007 and forthcoming). The first group is made of those urban centers – and subsections within them – located in zones at risk of being exposed to sea level rise, wildfires, storms, heat-waves, floods, and other climate-weather hazards (Parnell et al., 2007; McGranahan et al., 2007). Low elevation coastal zones (LECZ) are a case in point. 4 According to McGranahan et al. (2007), LECZ contain some two percent of world's land, ten percent of its population, and thirteen percent of its urban population; sixty percent of the 600 million people living in LECZ are urban. A strong preference exists for dense coastal dwelling, especially in high income countries. Just as LECZ contains a greater share of the world's urban population than of its rural, it also contains a greater share of large urban settlements (and its populations) than of small urban settlements. This is influenced by the coastal location of large Asian cities. Environmentally, coastal settlements are faced with a double disadvantage: uncontrolled coastal development is likely to damage sensitive ecosystems and resources, which are a key at buffering the impacts of extremes such as storms; it will also likely expose residents to increasing seaward hazards (sea level rise and storms) which climate change is expected to aggravate. The second group is made of urban areas particularly in middle- and low-income countries, which are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, mostly as a result of both development and governance failures (Saterthwaite et al., 2007; Wilbanks and Romero Lankao, 2007; Partner et al., 2007). Differently from what happens in most prosperous and well-governed cities, urban dwellers in middle- and low-income countries lack all weather roads, piped water supplies, drains, and electricity supplies (Pelling, 1999; Aragon-Duran, 2007; Nichitto, 2007). Furthermore they live on poor-quality

strategies concern the building of assets over time and, in so doing, disaster reduction at the community level becomes a development activity. 4 LECZ is defined as the land area contiguous with the coastline up to a 10-m rise elevation. 11


homes on illegally occupied or subdivided land which inhibits any investment in more resilient buildings (see for instance Smyth and Royle, 2000; Tipple, 2006; Revi, 2008). 5 Furthermore, with some exceptions, the local governments of urban areas in low- and middle- income countries can not ensure provision for infrastructure and for disaster-risk reduction and disaster-preparedness (Aragon-Duran, 2007; Pelling, 2003) as well as for such “good governance practices” as stakeholder participation in decision making, democratic access to knowledge, transparency and accountability. This turns large sections of the urban population vulnerable to any increase in the frequency or intensity of storms or increased risk of disease or constraints on water supplies or food price increases. Just as not all urban areas are equally vulnerable, not all demographic segments of the population within an urban area are equally able to cope with climate hazards. Studies within this lineage identify the following factors as determinants of urban populations’ vulnerability to the hazards climate change is expected to aggravate: individual factors and assets, collective assets, social capital, exposure to hazards and stresses, and institutional factors (Table 2). For scholars within this lineage (similarly as for the impact assessments tradition) vulnerability is also determined by exposure to both climate-weather hazards and phenomena of environmental deterioration such as air pollution, soil erosion and destruction of wetlands (12.9 percent of the determinants, see Table 2). The Metropolitan Area of Rio de Janeiro illustrates this. In recent years, urban dwellers experienced increases in their levels of vulnerability resulting from such factors as “natural resource exploitation and new processes of land use change” in areas characterized by mountainous topography, water scarcity and other unfavorable environmental conditions (Smyth and Royle, 2000). Individual factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, health conditions and migration status combined make up 22.2 per cent of the determinants (Table 2). Such sectors of the urban populations as the very young, already sick, elderly, women and new migrants are, hence, relatively more vulnerable. Note that in both the inherent vulnerability and the impact assessments lineages, health conditions and age are key individual determinants of adaptive capacity. Another set of factors is given by the access to and the quality not only of individual assets such as income, employment, education and housing (15.8 percent of the determinants, Table 2), but also of education, health, water, sanitation and other collective assets (27.8 percent of the determinants, Table 2). This means that differential vulnerabilities within cities “are largely distributed according to the class, ethnoracial 5

The percentage of slum populations within the urban areas of developed, developing and least developing countries (6%, 43% and 78.2% of their total urban population) can serve as a good indicator of these differences (UN-Habitat, 2003: 14). Determinants of vulnerability within slums include such factors as inadequate access to safe water, sanitation and other infrastructures, poor structural quality of housing and insecure residential status. 12


status and political power of urban communities” (Klinenberg 1999: 245, see also Semenza et al., 1996; Pelling, 2007; Rashid, 2000; Browning et al., 2006; Sharkey, 2007; Awour et al., 2008). An issue differently addressed within this lineage relates to how the prevalence of poverty determines vulnerability. For some scholars (Manuel-Navarrete et al., 2007), poverty is a cause of vulnerability. Or as otherwise stated by Browning et al (2006), it is the absence of viable and healthy commercial enterprises and of concentrated affluence that exerts a strong influence in the vulnerability of urban populations (see also Klinenber, 1999). Yet for other scholars (Hamza and Zetter, 1998), it is the underlying processes which create poverty that also contribute to vulnerability. The adaptive capacity of urban populations is also determined by the collective efficacy 6 of community-based organizations, churches, social services and networks, role models and other social institutions and organizations (5.7 percent of the determinants, see Table 2). This collective efficacy can be compromised by antidemocratic or centralized political contexts (Browning et al., 2006; Pelling, 1998 and 1999; Airriess et al., 2008). Last but not least, institutional factors such as quality of policy responses, urban planning and governance exert a strong influence in the vulnerability of urban populations (15.8 percent of the determinants, see Table 2). Studies find that cities that lack flexible management agencies have more vulnerable populations. Cities with flexible management agencies also tend be those with adequate authority, financial, and human resources and with agencies that are able to effectively respond to weather-climate events. These cities build on their relationships with their vulnerable populations; they learn from past experiences and develop long-term commitments to investing in disasterrisk reduction (e.g., Klinenberg, 1999; Revi, 2008; Milman and Short, 2008). A key component of this effectiveness is scientific knowledge, e.g., for the urban water sector reliable estimates of supply and demand are necessary. These estimates must account for how the issue of concern – e.g., water availability – will be affected both by climate change and by demographic growth (Milman and Short, 2008). Another key component of this effectiveness is driven by good governance practices such as stakeholder participation in decision-making, democratic access to knowledge, transparency and accountability (see Tompkins and Lemos, 2008). A key question regarding the underlying (or indirect) determinants of vulnerability relates to the mechanisms by which macro (structural) socioeconomic and institutional processes result in differential access to the direct determinants of adaptive capacity (Hamza and Zetter, 1998; Pelling, 1997; Satterthwaite et al., 2007; Revi, 2008). Despite appearing in bits and pieces in the papers belonging to this lineage, the mechanisms can be summarized in the following way: a) Urban areas become vulnerable to hazards because of the logic of uneven development underlying urbanization. The most important direct cause of 6

The collective efficacy “emphasizes mutual trust and solidarity (social cohesion) and shared expectations for pro-social action (informal social control)” (Browning et al., 2006: 665). 13


urbanization world-wide has been the movement of populations from rural to urban areas. And the main underlying driver is the concentration of new investment and economic opportunities in particular urban areas together with the lack of prospects (or political stability) in the rural villages and farms that the migrants are leaving (Satterthwaite, 2005; Hamza and Zetter, 1998). Direct foreign investment and global finance show a sharp concentration in the cities of high-income countries. 7 Especially within developing countries, the influx of capital and high-income populations tend to concentrate in urban corridors specialized in corporate services and luxury residential developments, and equipped with infrastructures, services and amenities (Smyth and Royle 2000). b) The context of the changing world economy and its impact on the division of labor defines new roles for cities and determines new forms of governance (see d). Urban areas receiving migrant flows benefit from increased labor and attract businesses and investment along corridors. However, especially in developing countries cities are ill-equipped to create jobs and provide adequate land, infrastructure, housing and services at the pace they are being demanded. c) Both (a) and (b) result in land use patterns ill suited for the scale of growth and dynamic restructuring of economic activity, thus creating an intensified competition for land, and pricing low-income groups out of the legal housing market (Smith and Royle, 2000, Satterthwaite et al., 2007). These groups then locate on unstable hillsides, in and around garbage dumps and industries, in floodand landslides-prone lowland areas along river banks, and in other risky areas. d) New forms of governance have been underway since the 1980s: decentralization, structural adjustment policies and the retrenchment of the welfare state. For many cities this has meant that their governments have been “less and less able and willing to protect their more precarious residents” (Klinenberg, 1999: 245). This is true even in developed countries, where new vulnerabilities are shaped by aging and migration. Especially in developing countries, however, structural adjustment (SA) policies are another underlying factor of increased vulnerability. For these populations liberalization has threatened job security, created wages that have failed to keep pace with inflation, and resulted in cuts in basic subsidies for water, energy, fuel, transport and shelter, while cuts in public social expenditure have resulted in a severe erosion of urban dwellers’ capacity to adapt (Hamza and Zetter, 1998). e) Not only does the changing world economy relate to new forms of governance, but also to different roles for urban planning. The regulatory side of urban 7

Direct foreign investment and global finance tend to concentrate in the cities of the North Atlantic region European Union, the US and Canada) to a lesser extent in Japan, South East Asia and Latin America. The North Atlantic region “accounts for two-thirds of the world-wide stock market capitalization, sixty per cent of inward foreign investment stock, sixty per cent of world wide sales in merges and acquisitions, and eighty per cent of purchases in merges and acquisitions (Sassen, 2002: 18). 14


planning (particularly the land use management system), is at the core of such sources of urban vulnerability as the location of populations in cheaper and – often – risk-prone areas (Smyth and Royle, 2000; Revi, 2008). When dominated by market mechanisms, urban planning is also a key driver of the location of wealthy sectors in those areas (Smyth and Royle, 2000), even in developed countries. 8 Urban planning does not mean the reemergence of master planning, 9 criticized for bearing too little relation to the urban reality it was supposed to plan, especially in rapidly growing and poor cities. (Watson, 2007). Rather, it means the emergence of such new planning initiatives as strategic planning, UN Urban Management Programme, and Planning for environmental hazards and risks (Watson, 2007). 10 These are faced with two main challenges. The first relates to the extent to which safety measures, risk assessment and environmental considerations can become significant elements in the decision making and planning processes, when economic survival is the main aim, and when the foundations of livelihoods and economic stability have been so deeply undermined by structural adjustment policies (Hamza and Zetter, 1998). The second refers to the fact that the elements of choice, participation, democracy and access to information and knowledge, all essential for the effective operation of planning, are missing in many cities and urban centers, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. While research on inherent urban vulnerability has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of both the determinants of different vulnerabilities across and within cities, and the mechanisms by which direct determinants are embedded into broader (structural) historical and political conditions, it also faces some constraints. It does not, for instance, address how exposure to changing hazards evolves over time. Despite offering a picture of how direct and underlying socioeconomic and institutional factors of vulnerability change over time, papers within this lineage sometimes provide generic descriptions of inequities in resource distribution and opportunity, but do not provide the

8

For instance, the US vulnerability to natural hazards has been rising since the 1970s due to such factors as suburbanization with more people living in unprotected floodplains, forests, and coastal locations; and the increased size of corporations permitting more risk-taking behavior in terms of plant locations in highly hazardous areas because they had the capacity to absorb the loss (Cutter et al., 2008). 9 Originated in high-income countries, urban master plans found their way to almost every other part of the world, in the form of comprehensive plans generated with technocratic, top-down methods, and primarily using zoning as their main legal tools. Master plans have been criticized for being selectively mobilized to achieve particular sectional or political interests, or to influence the land use and development of some parts of cities in ways that may exclude poorer sectors of the population (Watson, 2007). 10 Different temporal scales are involved in risk reduction management, namely short-term responses, medium-term planning and long-term development policies. The short-term response occurs when the hazard is about to happen, or is happening; it involves real-time disaster response (assessment, coordination, and relief), recovery and relief (the latter being predominantly humanitarian). ‘‘Preparedness’’ is a medium-term planning activity that involves developing and testing disaster management plans, implementing warning systems, stockpiling resources, coordinating agencies, and ensuring evacuation plans work. The longer-term planning aspect addresses sustainable development (Pelling, 2006; Tomkins et al., 2008). 15


whole causal sequence of how those inequities relate to differential susceptibility to harm (Turner et al., 2003). 3.3 Socio-ecological resilience Some studies have introduced the notion of resilience to the analysis of vulnerability and adaptive capacity (Tompkins and Adger, 2005; Adger, 2006, see section 2.1), thus enriching the vulnerability discussion in many ways. These scholars recognize that not only human societies, but also ecosystems and socio-ecological systems (cities) change and exhibit non- and multi-equilibrium dynamics (Gallopin, 2006); cities and their populations are not only exposed to climate and weather hazards, but also to a variety of ecological and societal stresses (Turner et al., 2003); policy makers and stake holders can enhance urban resilience if they can develop mechanisms for adaptive management and build capacity for learning and adaptation (see Tompkins and Adger, 2004). We found two groups of studies on urban vulnerability within this lineage (9 case studies). For the first, the level of vulnerability associated with a place (in this case a city) is composed of the social, physical, and built environment characteristics that make an urban center more susceptible to risks and hazards and influence its ability to recover from them. Vulnerability to natural hazards is, hence, as much based on such societal determinants as social inequalities or long-term water-management strategies, as it is on environmental processes (Cutter and Finch, 2008; Cutter et al., 2008; Morehouse, 2000; Morehouse et al., 2002). Here two key questions arise related to temporal and spatial patterns of vulnerability. On the temporal side, even taking into account that climate change is not yet a major factor in decision making, one could ask whether for example water-management interventions resulting in substantial progress in buffering urban water users against impacts of hazards like droughts might be outpaced by increasing water demand resulting from demographic growth and development trends (Morehouse, 2000; Morehouse et al., 2002). The question then becomes whether adequate temporal models can be constructed to project and plan accordingly given the many uncertainties at play within these systems. Within the spatial realm, similarly it might be asked whether a spatial pattern of the urban vulnerability exists and what defines it, i.e. whether it is possible to capture and compare it with quantitative tools (e.g. hazards indexes, built environment vulnerability indexes, and social vulnerability indexes). 11 The second group portrays vulnerability as a property of a socio-ecological system, including the response capacities and system feedbacks to the hazards encountered, and seeks to elaborate the mechanisms and processes in a coupled manner (Turner et al., 2003a and 2003b; de Sherbinin et al., 2007). The city and its populations in this account are differently exposed to and experience interacting perturbations and stresses of natural 11

The hazards vulnerability index (HazVI) measured the contribution to vulnerability from the historical frequency of hazard events and their impacts. It represents an urban area’s past experience with hazards and can be thought of as an analog model of potential future hazard vulnerability. The built environment vulnerability index (BEVI) measured the relative contribution of characteristics of the built environment such as infrastructure, housing age, and property value to urban vulnerability. The Social Vulnerability Index or SoVI provides a city-level comparative metric of social vulnerability to natural hazards based on the underlying socioeconomic and demographic profile. 16


events such as climate with those of a social nature (e.g., the pressures of globalization, as they interact with increases in temperature, decreases in precipitation, SLR, storms, droughts). These multiple stresses are attenuated (or amplified) by the equation and in a synergy between the physical and social characteristics of the exposed system (in this case the city). Analysis on the city level, however, takes into account different vulnerabilities existing across the subsystems and populations within the city, which are determined by both access to assets/endowments and governance structures. Rio de Janeiro for instance already suffers from a significant ongoing vulnerability to floods and landslides. While civil defense measures are in place to cope with natural disasters, underlying structural problems such as lack of concrete flood protection infrastructure, political clientelism 12 and spatial segregation based on income, render the city vulnerable to hazards climate change is expected to aggravate. Not all populations are equally vulnerable. Highly vulnerable sub-populations living in favelas and near waterways coexist with relatively less vulnerable upper classes living in high-rise apartments in locations less susceptible to inundation. Another example is provided by Shanghai, a relatively wealthier city, where disaster policies have helped reduce death toll from floods. However, as in Rio de Janeiro, In Shanghai disaster management is constrained by such societal factors as political fragmentation and lack of coordination; a growing elderly population; and growing inequalities in immigrant areas (Sherbinin et al., 2007). As already mentioned, this lineage has enriched the vulnerability discussion in many ways. The most important is the attempt to include in the analysis not only urban exposure to climate and other stresses, but also the way in which the dynamics of cities as coupled human-environmental systems allow them to cope with those stresses. Nevertheless, very few case studies have been undertaken under this framework. This can be attributed to the difficulties of translating and operationalizing the concept of resilience to the analysis of such complex systems as cities. 4. Components and determinants of urban vulnerability: closing remarks The concept of (urban) vulnerability describes a complex and dynamic reality, one which depends on the context-specific combination of such factors as the characteristics of the system of analysis and the type of hazard in question. However, this paper illustrated that some components and determinants hold across cases. In this meta-analysis we pulled a minimum set of models or frameworks to go beyond existing case studies, looking for systematic patterns across the frameworks and describe common and differentiated patterns of urban vulnerability across and within urban centers. We found that some determinants of vulnerability hold more largely across specific situations. Seven factors in our meta-analysis made 70 percent of the determinants (age, 12

Clientelism is a form of social organization common in many low- and middle-income countries characterized by "patron-client" relationships. This means that relatively powerful and rich “patrons” promise to provide relatively powerless and poor “clients” with jobs, protection, infrastructure, and other benefits in exchange for votes and other forms of loyalty including labor. 17


exposure, income/poverty, access to/quality of infrastructure, location, and access to/quality of services). Urban vulnerability is, hence, a complex and multidimensional phenomenon determined by a number of concurrent factors. Furthermore, it is a relative property given by both the inherent characteristics of the city but also and its exposure to hazards and stresses. However our literature review reveals that scholars tend to focus on some components and determinants of vulnerability. This results from the lineage the studies belong to, namely physical vulnerability, inherent vulnerability and resilience of socio-ecological systems. The three lineages result in different (yet in some aspects overlapping or complementary) narratives on the patterns of causation. For the impacts assessments tradition, vulnerability is mainly determined by the characteristics of the hazard cities to which, their infrastructures and populations are exposed. For the inherent-vulnerability tradition, pathways of urban development, structural adjustment policies and other broader societal processes underlie direct factors (i.e. inequalities in access to assets) determining different vulnerabilities/capacities to cope with and manage hazards and stresses across and within urban centers. Impacts assessments contribute to understanding the nature and dynamics of the hazards urban centers and populations are and will be faced with. By looking into the future, impacts assessments explore the levels of adaptation cities need between now and the next future to cope with ‘inevitable’ climate change as well as the likely and unavoidable climate impacts on cities over the 21st century. Nevertheless, impact assessments only address some components of the full array of significant dimensions and determinants of urban vulnerability (exposure to hazards, sensitivity, potential impacts and adaptation options). They do not address how the determinants of adaptive capacity explaining not only the urban willingness to adapt, but also how adaptation choices are constrained by the socioeconomic, political and environmental conditions of a city and its populations. Research on inherent urban vulnerability has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of both the determinants of different vulnerabilities across and within cities, and the mechanisms by which direct determinants are embedded into broader (structural) historical and political conditions. But it does not provide the whole causal sequence of how those inequities relate to differential susceptibility to harm. Research on socio-ecological resilience has attempted to overcome the limitations of the other two traditions by addressing not only urban exposure to climate and other stresses, but also the way in which the dynamics of cities as coupled human-environmental systems allow them to cope with those stresses. The problem is that very few case studies have been undertaken under this framework as it is difficult operationalize the concept of resilience to the analysis of such complex systems as cities.

18


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