Rural Vulnerability Research Articles

Rural Vulnerability and the Ambiguous Legacy of Capitalism

Rural Vulnerability and the Ambiguous Legacy of Capitalism

Filling the void: Rural disaster volunteerism during the Swedish wildfires of 2018

In the summer of 2018, both fire and rescue services and volunteers fought against the extensive wildfires that spread over the northern parts of Sweden. The challenges were many and one of the most obvious was the lack of resources provided by the state, both material and human. This lack of official resources, together with the long distances that characterize the rural northern parts of Sweden, have been highlighted in subsequent evaluations as one of the main reasons for the widely spread fires. The lack of official resources in itself can be understood as a consequence of several years of dismantling and centralization of the Swedish fire and rescue service. However, the responses from the local community were enormous. Local volunteers, spontaneous as well as organized, assisted in firefighting; in providing food and services; in offering shelter for evacuated, and many other things. In disaster research, volunteer activities have often been described as something that “fills the void” when official resources are scarce. This seems to be particularly true in rural contexts. This paper applies a critical perspective on rural disaster volunteerism by framing it as an expression of rural vulnerability and peripheralization: as something that is performed as a compensatory act in rural communities affected by social dismantling. In other words, both place and politics are central in understanding rural voluntary activity. Inspired by the theoretical concept geographies of voluntarism, this paper argues that people make sense of volunteer initiatives in relation to both the place where these activities take place and in relation to the power relations associated with this place. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore how rural disaster volunteerism intersects with structural conditions of rurality.

A rural resilience development indicator system oriented to common prosperity: The case of a coastal village in Zhejiang Province

China’s coastal village is a typical synthesis of material and intangible culture, such as natural landscape, marine pasture, and belief in the sea god. Simultaneously, it is also a valuable resource that can be universally utilized for the development of innovative industries such as the marine industry and leisure fisheries. However, with the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, the coastal village has not received much attention and the eco-environment has been damaged to some extent. Rural resilience development becomes the future trend of humanistic ecological wellbeing communities, while being able to circumvent rural vulnerability to varying degrees in a wave of global rural revitalization. Thus, establishing an evaluation system for resilience development of coastal rural eco-environment can provide a baseline for rural revitalization for sustainability. This article constructs an evaluation system for the rural resilience development based on the DPSER (driver, pressure, state, effect, and response) model. 29 indicators and corresponding weights of drivers, pressures, states, effects, and responses are evaluated using the objective and subjective weighting methods. Thereby, the study ascertained the conditions and dilemmas of resilience development of coastal rural eco-environment, and revealed that the response indicators have the greatest influence. This evaluation system can not only contribute to quantify the qualitative assessment or take the qualitative social assessment of resilience to a quantitative level, but it can also provide guidance and apply to the issues of well-being sharing and social equity in resilience development of rural areas.

Learning from the Past: The Impacts of Economic Crises on Energy Poverty Mortality and Rural Vulnerability

The summer-dominated Mediterranean island of Cyprus is often considered in the contexts of beach tourism, sunny weather, and different types of business economic activities and services. In terms of its climatic conditions, extreme heat and mild winters characterise the island; yet, recent evidence has shown that winter poses a significant threat to public health. Its excess winter mortality is amongst the highest in Europe and there is an increased risk of energy-poverty-related mortality compared to total mortality. This study is an extension of previous research, with the objective of further scrutinizing the shift observed between urban and rural energy poverty mortality in the time of a severe nationwide financial crisis. Mortality and temperature data for the period of 2008–2018, as well as macroeconomic indicators, were investigated through a linear regression analysis. The results indicated that the declining economic situation of the island severely hit rural areas, with a significant increase in energy-poverty-related mortality, while urban areas were more resilient to this. There are three existing challenges linked to energy poverty: low incomes, high energy prices, and poor building energy efficiency. In Cyprus, all three coincide and are aggravated in times of crisis, creating conditions of extreme vulnerability for populations already in a disadvantaged position. This study’s motivation was to highlight the intense vulnerability associated with crises in Cyprus, and its outcomes call for higher levels of support at such times, especially when it comes to rural populations.

Spatiotemporal Variation of Rural Vulnerability and Its Clustering Model in Guizhou Province

The vulnerability of China’s rural system is becoming increasingly obvious due to the multiple pressures of geological conditions and human interference. This study selected Guizhou Province to measure the degree of vulnerability and determine a rural system’s temporal and spatial characteristics. We select the county as the unit, build the vulnerability assessment of a rural system based on the three dimensions of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptability, and employ the combination weighting method. The final development indicator of the rural vulnerability measurement model was obtained using the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution method. Further, SatScan v10.1 software was used for spatiotemporal scanning statistical analysis, and its clustering pattern was analyzed. Finally, visual analysis was conducted using ArcGIS 10.7 software. The results showed that exposure and sensitivity have an increasing fluctuation trend, while adaptability has a decreasing trend. The combined effect resulted in an increasing trend of vulnerability. The mean values of exposure, sensitivity, adaptation, and rural vulnerability in Yunyan are 0.906, 0.894, 0.772, and 1.028 higher than those in Nanming, i.e., 0.417, 0.426, 0.687, and 0.262, respectively. The vulnerability of the rural system shows a spatial pattern of “low in the middle and high on both sides,” with spatial clustering, and Guiyang and Zunyi are the cluster centers.

Forests of Fear: Illegal Logging, Criminalization, and Violence in the Carpathian Mountains

In this article we explore the twisted consequences of the worldwide turn toward prohibitive policies and criminalization in conservation. We argue that tackling environmental challenges with legal repertoires that are coercive and punitive in nature increases criminalization and produces insidious and overt forms of violence. Tough-on-crime measures aimed at curbing illegal logging advance social vulnerabilities, further marginalizing already disenfranchised rural populations. Also, such measures trigger the formation of a culture of patronage, secrecy, fear, and anger, which facilitates the rise of forest violence. Transformations of forest use under increasingly harsh regimes of conservation have been documented worldwide, but these processes in Eastern Europe have received far less scholarly attention. Here we explore forest criminalization in Romania after it became a member state of the European Union, looking at different groups of alleged wrongdoers: petty community users, local forestry businessmen, and forestry officers. Drawing on interviews with forestry and conservation actors, media analysis, and ethnographic research of communities for which illegal logging was an everyday reality, we show how criminalization escalated into insidious forms of violence and the deepening of rural vulnerabilities.

Can government subsidies and public mechanisms alleviate the physical and mental health vulnerability of China’s urban and rural residents?

BackgroundPoverty vulnerability has been defined as the likelihood of a family falling into poverty in the upcoming months. Inequality is a major cause of poverty vulnerability in developing countries. There is evidence that establishing effective government subsidies and public service mechanisms significantly reduces health poverty vulnerability. One of the ways to study poverty vulnerability is by using empirical data such as income elasticity of demand to perform the analysis. Income elasticity refers to the extent to which changes in consumers’ income affect changes in demand for commodities or public goods. In this work, we assess health poverty vulnerability in rural and urban China. We provide two levels of evidence on the marginal effects of the design and implementation of government subsidies and public mechanisms in reducing health poverty vulnerability, before and after incorporating the income elasticity of demand for health.MethodsMultidimensional physical and mental health poverty indexes, according to the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative and the Andersen model, were implemented to measure health poverty vulnerability by using the 2018 China Family Panel Survey database (CFPS) as the data source for empirical analysis. The income elasticity of demand for health care was used as the key mediating variable of impact. Our assessment was conducted by a two-level multidimensional logistic regression using STATA16 software.ResultsThe first level regression indicates that the marginal utility of public mechanism (PM) in reducing urban and rural vulnerability as expected poverty on physical and mental health (VEP-PH&MH) was insignificant. On the other hand, government subsidies (GS) policies had a positive suppression effect on VEP-PH&MH to a relatively low degree. The second level regression found that given the diversity of health needs across individual households, i.e., the income elasticity of demand (HE) for health care products, PM and GS policies have a significant effect in reducing VEP-PH&MH in rural and urban areas. Our analysis has verified the significant positive impact of enacting accurate GS and PM policies on effectively reducing VEP-PH&MH in rural as well as urban areas.ConclusionsThis study shows that implementing government subsidies and public mechanisms has a positive marginal effect on reducing VEP-PH&MH. Meanwhile, there are individual variations in health demands, urban-rural disparities, and regional disparities in the effects of GS and PM on inhibiting VEP-PH&MH. Therefore, special consideration needs to be given to the differences in the degree of health needs of individual residents among urban and rural areas and regions with varying economic development. Furthermore, considerations of this approach in the current worldwide scenario are analyzed.

Study on Spatiotemporal Changes of Rural Vulnerability in China’s Southwest Mountainous Provinces from 2000 to 2020 Based on Remote Sensing Image Interpretation: A Case in Yunnan Province

The three dimensions of ecological, economic, and social vulnerability in the mountainous countryside are caused by the fragility of the natural ecosystems of the mountains, which overlap with the geographical location of the countryside and are associated with farm production and low productivity. This study conducts a vulnerability evaluation of mountainous rural areas based on the fundamentals of ecological vulnerability in mountainous regions by combining “RS and GIS + multistage land use/land cover change (LUCC) + rural vulnerability evaluation theory and quantitative and practical techniques”. The goal of this project is to establish a comprehensive evaluation system that takes into account the various vulnerability levels in rural areas. It is based on the results of the three phases (2000, 2010, and 2020) of land use/land cover remote sensing images of Yunnan Province. The Delphi approach was used to determine the indicator weights. In order to quantitatively assess the rural vulnerability of 129 counties in Yunnan Province in 2000, 2010, and 2020, as well as to reveal the spatiotemporal characteristics of the rural vulnerability of the entire province in each county from 2000 to 2020, the qualitative comprehensive analysis method and the quantitative multi-index comprehensive evaluation method were organically combined. This paper’s objective is to offer a basis for the strategic planning and management of sustainable rural development and revitalization in mountainous provinces. The findings demonstrate that the ecological, economic, and social vulnerability levels all dramatically decreased over the previous two decades in rural Yunnan Province and its counties. The overall vulnerability of rural areas has been somewhat diminished, with an average annual decline of 1.17% over the past 20 years in the whole province. This demonstrates how the construction and development of rural areas over the past two decades have significantly decreased the overall vulnerability of rural areas. There are, nevertheless, substantial geographical variations. At present, the levels of ecological, economic, social, and overall vulnerability in rural areas of Yunnan Province are high.

Assessment of Rural Vulnerability to Sand and Dust Storms in Iran

Climate-related hazards such as sand and dust storms (SDS) have various impacts on human health, socio-economy, environment, and agroecosystems. Iran has been severely affected by domestic and external SDS during the last two decades. Considering the fragile economy of Iran’s rural areas and the strong dependence of livelihood on agroecosystems, SDS cause serious damage to human communities. Therefore, there is an urgent need to conduct a vulnerability assessment for developing SDS risk mitigation plans. In this study, various components of SDS vulnerability were formulated through a geographic information system (GIS)-based integrated assessment approach using composite indicators. By implementing a GIS multiple-criteria decision analysis (GIS-MCDA) model using socioeconomic and remote sensing data, a map of rural vulnerability to SDS was produced. Our results show that about 37% of Iran’s rural areas have experienced high and very high levels of vulnerability to SDS. Rural areas in the southeast and south of Iran, especially Sistan and Baluchestan and Hormozgan provinces are more vulnerable to SDS. The findings of this study provide a basis for developing SDS disaster risk-reduction plans and enabling the authorities to prioritize SDS mitigation policies at the provincial administrative scale in Iran.

A District Level Rural Vulnerability Assessment in Uttar Pradesh - An Analytic Hierarchy Approach (AHP)

A District Level Rural Vulnerability Assessment in Uttar Pradesh - An Analytic Hierarchy Approach (AHP)

Correction: Rural vulnerability to water scarcity in Iran: an integrative methodology for evaluating exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity

Correction: Rural vulnerability to water scarcity in Iran: an integrative methodology for evaluating exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity

Remote and connected

Originally associated to big cities' centres, coworking spaces and «third-places» have been blooming in rural regions and small towns over the past five years. The development of those places has been critically supported by local and national authorities, with a growing interest from rural localities. Indeed, those places are supposed to provide answers to numerous contemporary territorial challenges, and to tackle several dimensions or rural vulnerability. They are supposed to enhance sustainability by reducing the need to commute and car-dependence, by bringing both workplaces and services closer from home. They are also mobilised to tackle the issue of the digital gap between centres and peripheries, providing digital infrastructures and hardware. Finally, they are supposed to reduce territorial inequalities by strenghtening rural entrepreneurship, safeguarding local jobs, facilitating professional retraining and attract new residents by providing an easier access to telework.
 Conducted between 2018 and 2020 in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, our study provides some elements to evaluate the effects of those places on territorial vulnerability and marginality. Based on the study of 17 coworking spaces situated in rural areas, their funders’ trajectories and their users’ profiles, we discuss the motives and the expected returns of those places, and their actual potentialities and limits.
 We first present the definitions of coworking spaces and third-places, the origin of their recent spread in the rural areas and the main features of their geographical locations. Then, we present the rationales behind the creation and attendance to those places, by analysing funders and users’ trajectories and motives. We then present the potentialities and limits of third-places on territorial vulnerability. In the discussion, we interrogate the notion of marginality at the light of those places, that can be defined essentially as spatial and social networks. Indeed, our study enlights the diversity of lifestyles in the rural areas. Coworkers display particular spatial anchorages, with local resources being valued, though combined with forms of plural and multilocalized belongings. Their relationship with the margin is chosen, controlled and reversible, sometimes even yearned for. Their connectedness is not so much defined by where they live rather than by who they know, embodying the predominantly social dimension of marginality.

Rural vulnerability and institutional dynamics in the context of COVID-19: A scoping review.

This study reviewed the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on pre-existing vulnerabilities in rural communities using the scoping review strategy. It focused on manuscripts published on the topic in 2020. Based on 39 studies that met our inclusion criteria (out of 507 studies), we note that COVID-19 is exacerbating pre-existing rural vulnerabilities, including poverty, remoteness, socio-economic marginalisation and high unemployment. There is limited evidence that rural communities are resilient to the pandemic. Reduction in household expenditures and the community food system are the only reported forms of resilience. Although local institutions are supporting rural communities in responding to the impacts of the pandemic, several institutional dynamics undermine the effectiveness of the response. The increased risk of the pandemic is likely to reduce incomes and standards of living amongst poor communities. Thus, coping strategies were identified such as starting small gardens in communities, diet changes, targeting community markets with produce rather than retailers and food swap using social media, with food swap being the most adopted coping strategy. Although this study does not offer a comprehensive picture of the levels and nature of vulnerability, resilience and institutional dynamics of rural communities in different parts of the world reveal the limitations of existing knowledge of the vulnerability of rural communities in the context of COVID-19. This underscores the importance of further studies on rural vulnerability in the context of COVID-19 that will enable evidence-based responses to the pandemic in rural contexts.

Rural vulnerability to water scarcity in Iran: an integrative methodology for evaluating exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity.

The water crisis is the main stress in arid and semi-arid areas, especially in rural areas where agriculture is the main livelihood. This study assessed vulnerability to water scarcity in six rural regions of Isfahan, Iran. These areas have lost their primary water source of agriculture, the Zayandeh Rud River, since 2006. They have confronted many socio-ecological problems which threatened their existence. A mixed methodology was used to assess vulnerability as a function of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Structured questionnaires and in-depth interviews were conducted with key informants and 266 households. The method of Multidimensional Poverty Index was applied to calculate the sensitivity index, which has not been used for sensitivity assessment yet. The results showed that the leading cause of water scarcity is poor water governance. The three districts that had direct access to the Zayandeh Rud river were more vulnerable to water scarcity (scores of 0.35, 0.39, and 0.44) than those that had never had direct access to the river (scores of 0.19, 0.21, and 0.23) due to the more exposure and less adaption to water shortage. Inappropriate financial resilience (from 0.24 to 0.41) and living standards (from 0.19 to 0.36) have made more contributions to creating sensitivity than socioeconomic factors (from 0.14 to 0.28). Different natural capitals have mainly created differences in adaptive capacity across rural areas. Villages located downstream have lost their natural capital due to water-quality degradation caused by river drying up and groundwater overexploitation.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10708-022-10726-0.

Can Restoration of the Commons Reduce Rural Vulnerability? A Quasi-Experimental Comparison of COVID-19 Livelihood-based Coping Strategies among Rural Households in Three Indian States

India has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the context of a larger quasi-experimental impact assessment, we assess the pandemic’s effects on household coping behavior in 80 villages spread across four districts and three states (n = 772). Half of these villages were targeted by a largescale common land restoration program spearheaded by an NGO, the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES). The other half are yet to be targeted but are statistically similar vis-à-vis FES’s village targeting criteria. Analyzing the results of a phone survey administered eight to ten months into the pandemic and its associated lockdowns, we find that the livelihood activities of households in both sets of villages were adversely impacted by COVID-19. Consequently, most households had to resort to various negative coping behaviors, e.g., distressed asset sales and reduced farm input expenditure. From the same mobile survey data, we construct a Livelihoods Coping Strategies Index (LCSI) and find that households in villages targeted by FES’s common land restoration initiative score 11.3% lower on this index on average, equating to a 4.5 percentage point difference. While modest, this statistically significant effect estimate (<em>p</em> &lt; 0.05) is consistent across the four districts and robust to alterative model and outcome specifications. We find no empirical support that our observed effect was due to improved access to common pool resources or government social programs. Instead, we speculate that this effect may be driven by institutional factors, rather than economic, a proposition we will test in future work.

Land reform rationalities and their governance effects in Indonesia: Provoking land politics or addressing adverse formalisation?

While land remains a critical element of diversified rural livelihoods across the Global South, especially during crises, mounting inequalities and enduring rural vulnerability lead to demands for redress. In response, rival reform ideas have emerged concerning how to improve land governance, drive rural development and rectify distributional injustices. Yet, reformist programs in Southeast Asia struggle to address the pervasive problem of ‘adverse formalization’ – a term we use to describe processes where the state claims sovereign control of extensive ‘public lands’ and embarks on formalization processes that include local populations into new land-based production systems on adverse terms. Using the natural experiment of Indonesia, where four tenurial reforms coincide, this paper draws on the governmentality literature to examine how travelling tenure knowledges work as rival and ambiguous political rationalities. We demonstrate how political economy, the need for political legitimacy, and frictional encounters between political knowledges, interests and practices shape the governance effects produced by tenure rationalities. Formalisation processes institutionalise state governance in areas previously resistant to such political rationalities, stabilise existing property relations, and accommodate ad hoc settlements without substantially resolving adverse formalisation while provoking a new politics of land.

Climate change and rural vulnerability in Vietnam: An analysis of livelihood vulnerability index

Vietnam is a densely populated country, with the majority of its impoverished people living in rural areas. These people lack facilities and means of self-protection against risks, especially natural disasters related to climate change. Therefore, it is necessary to study the livelihood vulnerability under climate change in rural regions of Vietnam. The study was based on the original Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) and LVI-IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) combined with the use of dataset from the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) in 2018. by using the dataset from the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) in 2018. The database is composed of 1,852 rural households in 12 provinces in Vietnam and considers socio-demographic profile, livelihood, health, food, social networks, water status, natural disasters, and climate variability. The results show that the North Central and South Central Coasts are the most vulnerable regions, with a lower LVI score (0.261) but higher LVI-IPCC score (0.012); this is mainly due to higher exposure to disasters—such as floods, sea storms, and tropical depressions—which heavily affect people’s livelihood. The Red River Delta, the Northern Midlands and Mountains, and the Central Highlands are moderately vulnerable. Moreover, the research outcome indicates that the Red River Delta and the Mekong River Delta were more vulnerable in terms of the sensitivity factor due to a higher vulnerability score on food and water components, especially drought and saltwater intrusions

General and Vulnerable Population's Satisfaction With the Healthcare System in Urban and Rural Areas: Findings From the European Social Survey.

Introduction: Access to the healthcare system when patients are vulnerable and living outside metropolitan areas can be challenging. Our objective was to explore healthcare system satisfaction of urban and rural inhabitants depending on financial and health vulnerabilities. Methods: Repeated cross-sectional data from 353,523 European citizens (2002–2016). Multivariable associations between rural areas, vulnerability factors and satisfaction with the healthcare system were assessed with linear mixed regressions and adjusted with sociodemographic and control factors. Results: In unadjusted analysis, the people who lived in houses in the countryside and those who lived in the suburbs were the most satisfied with the healthcare system. In the adjusted model, residents living in big cities had the highest satisfaction. Financial and health vulnerabilities were associated with less satisfaction with the healthcare system, with a different effect according to the area of residence: the presence of health vulnerability was more negatively correlated with the healthcare system satisfaction of big city inhabitants, whereas financial vulnerability was more negatively correlated with the satisfaction of those living in countryside homes. Conclusion: Vulnerable residents, depending on their area of residence, may require special attention to increase their satisfaction with the healthcare system.

Fostering Entrepreneurship And Supply Chain In Agri-Business In The Farming Community To Achieve Sustainable Rural Development In Namseling, Bhutan

Fostering Entrepreneurship And Supply Chain In Agri-Business In The Farming Community To Achieve Sustainable Rural Development In Namseling, Bhutan

“Deep Vulnerability”: Identifying the Structural Dimensions of Climate Vulnerability through Qualitative Research in Argentina, Canada, and Colombia

Extreme climate events are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change. Vulnerability to extremes is the result of three components: exposure to hazards, sensitivity of the system, and capacity to adapt. A large-scale qualitative study of rural vulnerability to climate extremes in Argentina, Canada, and Colombia demonstrates the political-economic root causes of vulnerability in each context. Structural causes are difficult to identify using quantitative indices and deductive metrics alone, but qualitative approaches can help identify key drivers of vulnerability at a deeper level. Technology and diversification are insufficient to address such structural or “deep” vulnerability.