Abstract
Vulnerability assessments have become necessary to increase the understanding of climate-sensitive systems and inform resource allocation in developing countries. Challenges arise when poor economic and social development combines with heterogeneous climatic conditions. Thus, finding and harmonizing good-quality data at local scale may be a significant hurdle for vulnerability research. In this paper we assess vulnerability to climate change at a local level in Ecuador. We take Ecuador as a case study as socioeconomic data are readily available. To incorporate the spatial and temporal pattern of the climatic variables we use reanalysis datasets and empirical orthogonal functions. Our assessment strategy relies on the statistical behavior of climatic and socioeconomic indicators for the weighting and aggregation mechanism into a composite vulnerability indicator. Rather than assuming equal contribution to the formation of the composite indicator, we assume that the weights of the indicators vary inversely as the variance over the cantons (administrative division of Ecuador). This approach captures the multi-dimensionality of vulnerability in a comprehensive form. We find that the least vulnerable cantons concentrate around Ecuador’s largest cities (e.g. Quito and Guayaquil); however, approximately 20 % of the national population lives in other cantons that are categorized as highly and very highly vulnerable to climate change. Results also show that the main determinants of high vulnerability are the lack of land tenure in agricultural areas and the nonexistence of government-funded programs directed to environmental and climate change management.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40064-015-1536-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines vulnerability as the degree to which geophysical, biological, and socio-economic systems are susceptible to, and unable to cope with adverse impacts of climate change (Houghton 1996)
Though we do not intend our assessment approach to compete with PCA, we argue that PCA may exclude variables or indicators with relatively lower contributions to the formation of the components so that a comprehensive ordering of the indicators, as the one we intend in this paper, may not be achieved
Earlier work has documented the extensive range of tools to assess climate change vulnerability at local levels
Summary
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines vulnerability as the degree to which geophysical, biological, and socio-economic systems are susceptible to, and unable to cope with adverse impacts of climate change (Houghton 1996) As these impacts at local scales are uncertain, vulnerability assessments have become necessary (Adger et al 2004) to increase the understanding of climate-sensitive systems and to inform the specification of targets and allocation of funds. Assessments have been conducted at different geographic scales, such as watersheds, rural areas (Eakin 2005), regions, countries, or worldwide (Pachauri et al 2014) These assessments have made use of a wide array of technical tools such as local-level case studies (O’Brien et al 2004; Sutanta et al 2013), resilience indicators (Brenkert and Malone 2005), bio-economic models (Schilling et al 2012), general equilibrium models (Parry et al 2004; Tol 2002), and cross-sectional studies (Mendelsohn et al 2006). The selection of the appropriate approach depends on the research or policy questions addressed, the urgency of the threat, the geographical and temporal scope of the analysis, the reliability of future climate impact projections, the level of previous knowledge, and the availability of data, expertise, and other resources (Füssel and Klein 2002, 2006; Füssel 2010)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
