Vulnerability, adaptation and resilience:

Progress toward incorporating VAR concepts into

adaptive water resource management

Report of the NeWater project -

New Approaches to Adaptive Water Management under Uncertainty

www.newater.info
Title
Vulnerability, adaptation and resilience. Progress toward
incorporating VAR concepts into adaptive water resource
management

Purpose Synthesis of work in NeWater from a perspective of

vulnerability and resilience
Filename D2_5_1.doc
Authors Bharwani, S., Magnuszewski, P., Sendzimir, J., Stein, C.,
Downing, T.E.
Document history Compilation and synthesis of contributions from NeWater
partners
Current version. Deliverable 2.5.1
Changes to previous version.
Date 29/01/08
Status Final
Target readership Researchers concerned with adaptive management, resilience
and vulnerability
General readership
Correct reference

Stockholm Environment Institute, Oxford Centre

January 2008

Prepared under contract from the European Commission

Contract no 511179 (GOCE)

Integrated Project in
PRIORITY 6.3 Global Change and Ecosystems
in the 6th EU framework programme

Deliverable title: Vulnerability, adaptation and resilience. Progress toward

incorporating VAR concepts into adaptive water resource
management
Deliverable no.: D 2.5.1
Due date of deliverable: Month 28
Actual submission date: Month 37
Start of the project: 01.01.2005
Duration: 4 years
Policy summary
Human simplification of fresh water systems has in many places eroded resilience and made social
and economic development vulnerable to change. In order to successfully deal with complexity and
uncertainty in freshwater management new approaches and concepts are required.
Adaptive capacity, resilience and vulnerability have been proposed as useful concepts in an adaptive
management process. They can assist stakeholders to think about complex social-ecological systems in
order to develop hypotheses about the system. These hypotheses can then be tested within the adaptive
management process.
However, there still exists confusion about the meanings of adaptive capacity, resilience and
vulnerability since different disciplines use them in different and sometimes incompatible ways. When
they are investigated together in order to better understand the relationships of the concepts,
ambiguities becomes even more apparent.
To become useful to practitioners the concepts must be further operationalised. Making adaptive
capacity, resilience and vulnerability operational requires reducing the broad, metaphorical definitions
to a set of variables of concern – for example, the resilience of what to what, or the vulnerability of
whom to what. Measuring adaptive capacity, resilience and vulnerability for management practice, is
difficult because of the complexity and of dynamics of freshwater systems. Often the system changes
faster then it can be assessed and indicators do not capture the functional processes of the system.
Therefore the impact of such assessments is often more academic than practical.
This working paper provides a direct overview of the conceptual bases for these terms, with further
detail of an integrating framework provided in the annex. Considerable work has been devoted to
building common understanding, if not agreeing universal definitions. Further progress is documented
in a subsequent NeWater working paper (D2.1.2) on dynamic vulnerability.

ii
Table of contents

1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Aim of this report................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Approach and outline............................................................................................................. 1
2 A quick tour of definitions.............................................................................................................. 3
3 The conceptual antecedents: brainstorming vulnerability and resilience ....................................... 3
4 A stylized dialogue on vulnerability, adaptation and resilience ..................................................... 5
5 Formal concepts, frameworks and nomenclatures.......................................................................... 7
5.1 From vulnerability to resilience ............................................................................................. 7
5.2 Emergent resilience................................................................................................................ 7
5.3 Adaptation as a social process ............................................................................................... 7
5.4 Reflecting on perspectives ................................................................................................... 10
6 Adaptation processes that link vulnerability and resilience.......................................................... 11
6.1 Historic development ........................................................................................................... 11
6.2 Relationships........................................................................................................................ 11
6.3 Ambiguity - a weakness or strength?................................................................................... 12
7 Barriers and bridges...................................................................................................................... 13
7.1 The main barriers and bridges for integrating resilience into AWRM ................................ 13
7.2 Perception of the ecosystem................................................................................................. 13
7.3 Operational concepts............................................................................................................ 14
7.4 Participatory indicators ........................................................................................................ 15
7.5 Limitations of measuring resilience..................................................................................... 15
7.6 The design and practice of institutions ................................................................................ 16
8 Looking forward ........................................................................................................................... 17
9 References .................................................................................................................................... 18
10 Brainstorming vulnerability and resilience: Report of the Hortobagy discussions in the NeWater
project.................................................................................................................................................... 20
11 Annex: The RAVCOM framework .............................................................................................. 24
11.1 Introduction.......................................................................................................................... 24
11.2 Formal Framework for Vulnerability................................................................................... 24
11.3 3. Systems Approach to Vulnerability ................................................................................. 27
11.4 4. Vulnerability Framework for a Deterministic Model ...................................................... 29
11.5 Adaptive Capacity................................................................................................................ 35
11.6 Resilience............................................................................................................................. 37
11.7 Conclusions.......................................................................................................................... 38
11.8 References............................................................................................................................ 39

iiii
Introduction
Aim of this report

The burgeoning literature on vulnerability, adaptation and resilience reflects widespread

interest in adaptive management of complex socio-ecological systems. However, much of
the literature is embedded in specific historical traditions, rarely bridges between core
concepts, and often fails to take advantage of progress from related domains. It is beyond
the scope of this document, or indeed the NeWater project, to fully integrate the three core
traditions that underpin adaptive management of water systems. A more modest aim is to
bring together several contributions through the NeWater project, reflect on the boundaries
between the three domains and suggest ways forward. In some sense, this report is work-in-
progress and further working papers, journal articles and case study material is expected in
the future to progress a robust dialog.

Approach and outline

The material is presented in three parts:

Part I: A grounding in concepts, principles and purposes

• A brainstorming exercise in the Hortobagy NeWater General Assembly
(October 2006) explored issues in vulnerability and resilience (in separate
groups) and then compared synergies and conflicts. The conclusion reinforced
our notion that VAR shares many core concepts, although not necessarily the
same definitions of terms.
• In this report, we build on this brainstorming to produce a stylized dialog
between three 'experts'. This is a partly humorous device to bring forward some
of the key issues, but the intention is also start future dialogs at a higher level of
interaction without repeating the same entry level debates.
• The grounding is taken a step forward with a review of the wealth of formal
frameworks available. This cannot be comprehensive, nor is it a full test of each
framework! Within NeWater we developed a formal language of vulnerability
(the PIK framework), a protocol for vulnerability assessment (BRAVA), and an
initial effort to formally link vulnerability and resilience (RAVCOM). This
section brings forward additional notes on archetypes (or vulnerability-resilience
complexes), adaptation and resilience. Of course, there are many other relevant
concepts, definitions, frameworks, and protocols.

Part II: Exploring linkages, barriers and next steps

• Barriers and bridges in taking VAR concepts and tools into adaptive water
management (or operational decision making more generally) are identified in
this section. Overcoming them is not so easy: we look to others for case studies
and experience that we can report on at a later date.
• A key bridging concept is adaptation as a socio-institutional process. A basic set
of principles is presented here, extending frameworks for adaptive decision
making and adaptive competence presented in Part I.
• The working paper concludes with the next steps that are planned in NeWater
and related projects. In particular we note the development of the weADAPT
platform for climate adaptation and linkages to the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

1

Part III: Supporting material
• Report of the NeWater General Assembly brainstorming session on resilience
and vulnerability—a longer version of the synopsis presented in Part I.
• The RAVCOM framework was developed by IIASA and WU, included here for
its many thoughtful insights. The PIK framework was published earlier as the
first NeWater working paper.
• The weADAPT platform is summarised in an information package prepared for
COP13 in Bali; see www.weADAPT.org for the evolving content.
• Additional material on resilience is available as well.
• Outlines of the following NeWater working paper on vulnerability and notes
toward journal articles are included for the interest and potential participation of
colleagues.

2
 PART I: A grounding in concepts, principles and purposes

A quick tour of definitions

Resilience, in its most basic sense, means the ability to deal with change and continue to
develop. Resilience as applied to socio-ecological systems (SES) has three defining
characteristics (Holling and Walker 2003):
 The amount of change the system can undergo and still retain the same controls on
function and structure (still be in the same state - within the same domain of
attraction).
 The degree to which the system is capable of self-organization.
 The ability to build and increase the capacity for learning and adaptation.
Adaptive capacity is the general ability of institutions, systems, and individuals to adjust to
potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the consequences.
(MEA 2005)
Vulnerability is most often conceptualized as being constituted by components that include
exposure to perturbations or external stresses, sensitivity to perturbation, and the capacity to
adapt (Gallopın 2006).

The conceptual antecedents: brainstorming vulnerability and

resilience
The brainstorming exercise in the Hortobagy NeWater General Assembly compared
synergies and conflicts between vulnerability and resilience frameworks.
The 'vulnerability group' discussed whether vulnerability analysis offers concepts and
methodologies that are lacking in resilience frameworks: Should an analysis through a
resilience lens only be applied to ecological systems? Can it apply to socio-ecological
systems?
The 'resilience group' began by revisiting definitions, initially focussing on: (1) the ability of
a system to recover from a shock (2) the ability for self-organization and (3) the ability for
learning and adaptation. The first of these characteristics is probably the most often
associated characteristic of resilience, but was contested within the resilience group
(reflecting wider discourse in the resilience community).
Both the vulnerability and resilience groups worked toward awareness of context:
vulnerability is embedded in place-based global change thinking—who is vulnerable to
what, when, why?; resilience of what, to what? makes the concepts more accessible and
practical.
Both groups recognised the need to define norms—levels of unacceptable vulnerability or
thresholds of resilience; targets for reduced vulnerability (or development) or features of a
system that should be preserved (or restored). Both groups recognised that the definition of
norms is subjective and often contested.
Scale is a salient concept in both communities. Temporal change—trends, evolution,
transformations—are central to resilience analyses and becoming more common in the
understanding of dynamic vulnerability.
Both vulnerability and resilience focus on the role of shocks external to the system.
Resilience analyses take shocks on at a system level, concerned with the process of recovery,

3
whereas vulnerability applications tend to be limited to the comparative statics of the impacts
of shocks, before and after, between different social groups and different places.
Central to both frameworks, and linking to adaptive management, is degree to which the
vulnerable and stakeholders are willing to change, to experiment with new strategies and to
collaborate in adaptive governance.

People often come to discussions of

vulnerability and resilience (and
adaptation) with naïve
preconceptions: Vulnerability hot
spots are just static overlays;
resilience seeks to maintain the
status quo. A fruitful dialog needs to
move beyond these entry level
debates and engage with the
enduring concepts, methodologies
and visions.

4
A stylized dialogue on vulnerability, adaptation and resilience
There is an urgent need to go beyond the elementary debates surrounding what is
vulnerability and what is resilience, to a more structured dialogue. Perhaps the metaphor of
a play is appropriate. Rather than repeating the first act over and over, our professional and
applied dialogues need to progress, to develop a plot or storyline, to come to some
conclusion, even if the main themes are not fully resolved.
In meetings in Bali (the Selini sessions, December 2008) and Stockholm (the April
Resilience 2008 conference), we developed the notion of a Socratic dialogue. Imagine three
people on a long train ride. Once they get over the introductions a conversation of the
following sort is not unimaginable. (In fact pieces of it are repeated at almost every
vulnerability-resilience meeting; all of the names are simply fictitious!)
Victor had introduced himself as one of the world authorities on vulnerability, spanning
several decades of work on natural hazards, multiple stressor frameworks and poverty. He
opens the debate:
So, you work on resilience! Isn't this just a fashionable term for the same old concept of
conservation, trying to preserve the status quo?
This is addressed to Ravi, an eager member of the Resilience Alliance, with a couple of
years of experience since his PhD. He replies:
Actually, resilience in the ecological community is a reaction to the notion of equilibrium
ecosystems that dominated the field in the 1960s to 1970s (and beyond in many
applications). Yes, resilience is fashionable, but not as a means to look at adaptive
management and transformations that we see as essential.
In turn, Ravi challenges the third member of the party, Debi, a development-adaptation
practitioner who has spent many years working with social entrepreneurs in developing
countries:
You people who work on the ground, don't you see the global changes that are sweeping
the world? How can you try to preserve stability when so much is changing?
Debi replies:
I admit, our first concern is poverty and the marginal peoples who suffer. We do know
about global change, climate change, land degradation and economic restructuring—all
stresses that affect the poor first and foremost. And we see them trying to cope with
inadequate institutions. We are trying to find practical solutions!
Not to be outdone, Debi turns the tide on the Victor:
I've seen loads of vulnerability maps, pretty pictures! Don't you know anything about the
reality of social exchanges, what happens on the ground is not as simple as mapping a
few indicators!
Victor takes the bait:
I hope you don't paint all of us with the same brush! Indicators have their role, but most
vulnerability maps are woefully inadequate. They confuse spatial scale with social
processes, a snapshot of the present with the complex dynamics of pathways.
At this point, the train arrives at a station...do fill in the next act in the play. Do the
participants find common ground? Are they happier in their own comfort zones? Do they
need an interlocutor (someone joins the group from a station called Facilitator?)?

5
Similar conversations tend to promote three fallacies:
 Many presentations confuse specific terms for generalised frameworks and equate
the wealth of general frameworks with practical experience. For instance, the term
'vulnerability' may be assigned a specific definition in a framework, and then the
entire 'vulnerability community' is assumed to agree with that definition and to
provide expertise along the lines of the definition. In reality, there are many
definitions of each term (even within their respective academic communities, see the
NeWater working paper, Downing et al. 2005). Building frameworks from detailed
meta-analyses is rare; most conceptual framings reflect the starting assumptions of
the authors rather than a close empirical link to actual experience.
 A focus on the respective communities (whether of the academic frameworks or
practitioners) tends to assume that the communities are homogeneous, that the
chosen representatives adequately embrace the diversity of experience. Bridging
people (and organisations) are rare, and rarely impartial in their ability to challenge
misconceptions in the several domains they are called upon to work across. In some
senses, creative solutions are derived from conflict (as long as it is managed).
 The more worrying behaviour is the tendency to redefine other communities as
subservient to one's own, presumably, superior framework. For instance resilience is
seen as a minor and imperfect part of transition management. Vulnerability is
defined as the inverse of resilience. Resilience is considered an emerging property
of a dynamic vulnerability analysis. Even if these are posed as straw horses, they
have the effect of trivialising what are considerable bodies of thinking and practice,
another barrier to constructive dialogues.
On the other hand, the communities might progress in several ways:
 A common recommendation is to focus on specific problems—learning by example,
comparing analyses and recommendations from different perspectives for the same
domain and case. One insight might be whether each community chooses different
case studies (e.g., the conditions of application may guide people to match the
problem with the framework, rather than the framework with the problem) or
whether each framework comes to similar conclusions (at least not radically
different ones) for the same cases.
 A more formal approach would be to develop stylised representations (models) of a
range of interesting cases (at least interesting to one of the communities in question).
Stylised models represent the formal assumptions of the analyst, interpreting
theoretical insights as presumed to be applicable to the case. This was an early
strategy in the NeWater project, but failed to establish sufficient participation to
yield useful insights. In some sense, the PIK 'language of vulnerability' is an attempt
to do this.
 The most challenging approach has been recommended many times: a formal meta-
analysis of case studies to deduce theoretical insights. This must go beyond a
synthesis and be cognizant of the role of different framings in choosing the relevant
dimensions for a meta-analysis (Taylor et al., 2008).

6
Formal concepts, frameworks and nomenclatures
The NeWater project has produced a wealth of ideas on vulnerability, resilience and adaptive
management, available separately from the authors and in more detail. This section
summarises broad approaches that begin with vulnerability or resilience, and a note on
adaptive capacity.

From vulnerability to resilience

The most common framing, and the initial concept of the NeWater project might be
characterized as:
V: A --> R
Or, vulnerability is the current baseline that establishes pathways of adaptive management
which (might) lead to resilience. In this case, vulnerability is static; adaptation is a process
and resilience an outcome. Beginning with vulnerability, the focus is the present status,
often for discrete exposure units.
The NeWater vulnerability protocol (BRAVA) is based on this concept—an initial screening
of who is exposed to what in order to plan further actor-specific adaptation strategies and
actions. The Water Poverty Index is a good example of constructing a current vulnerability
baseline. The PIK framework also follows this form, in the sense that a vulnerable system
(V) is exposed to specific events and stresses to which the system adapts (A), with resilience
being a measure of the fitness of the system to adapt.

Emergent resilience

A somewhat different framing is:

R = {V1, V2...Vn}
Or, resilience is the emergent property of the many vulnerabilities that define the elements of
a system. The focus on the constituent parts of a system and their differential exposure is
instrumental. Vulnerability here is taken to include the dynamic response over time to
stresses (that is, it includes adaptation as integral to dynamic vulnerability).
This framing puts resilience into the forefront as the guiding concept and goal for adaptive
management. The focus tends to be on the system level, with the component vulnerabilities
only addressed to the extent that they impinge on system performance. In NeWater this
approach is reflected in the work on participatory cognitive modelling (Magnuszewski 2005)
and the Management Transition Framework (MTF) (Pahl-Wostl 2007).

Adaptation as a social process

Connecting vulnerability (as the current baseline) and resilience (as an emergent property of
the system) is adaptation (at least in one conception). As we view vulnerability and
resilience as dynamic processes (see the NeWater working paper for Deliverable 2.1.2), so
adaptation is best viewed as a socio-institutional process. Specifically, we challenge
equating adaptation with the intended outcome (a reduction in future vulnerability).1
We propose a set of specific notations, derived from the formal requirements of representing
adaptation in agent-based social simulation. The nomenclature represents a continuum from

1
Our earlier work on adaptation nomenclature is drawn upon here, see: Downing, T.E., Bharwani, S.,
Warwick, C. and Ziervogel, G., with others. 2003. Climate adaptation actions, strategies and capacity
from an actor oriented perspective. SEI Working Paper, Oxford.

7
an adaptation action to strategies, which are related to adaptive capacity and adaptive
potential:
 An adaptation action is a specific response that an actor can implement.
 An adaptation strategy is a set of actions that an actor can chose from.
 Adaptive capacity is the super set of adaptive strategies, that is the combined set of
actions that exist within the domain of an individual actor.
 Adaptive potential is the ability of actors in a system to create new strategies and
actions.
An adaptation action (Xa,i) is an action (i) that can be implemented by an actor (a). It
corresponds to the notion of a measure in greenhouse gas inventories. An action is a specific
action that exists at present and could be implemented. For example, changing the planting
date is an action in cropping systems. Each action (Xa,i) includes several attributes, such as:
 information required to enact the action, such as market forecasts,
 resources required to enact the action, including financial, labour and materials,
 expected outcome (which may be a complex function), and
 linkages to other actors (an action may require approval by other actors).
The adaptation actions that are actually chosen and implemented at a given point of time
form a subset of Xa,i. This might be denoted as X*a,i.
An adaptation strategy (Aa,j) is the set of adaptation actions, defined as:
Aa,j = {Xa,1, … Xa,n}
The adaptation strategy, formulated by an actor (a), consists of the specific actions (Xa,i)
available to the actor. As a strategy, however, Aa,j includes attributes of a systemic nature.
The main feature of a strategy is to include explicit goals or objectives that guide the choice
of which actions to implement. These strategies are ‘real’—they have been identified by the
actors, they are composed of specific actions that can be implemented, and they can be
communicated to other actors (although it is not necessary that every actor knows what other
actors will do).
An actor is likely to have more than one strategy (j). For example, if the regulatory regime
(at a higher level of decision making) moves toward a market economy, then the actor may
adopt strategy (Aa,1) whereas a common property regime would imply strategy (Aa,2).
There might be some overlap in the elements of each strategy, however different rules would
govern their implementation.
Adaptation strategies (and by implication the adaptation actions) available to a specific actor
depends on social networks. For instance, if the actor is isolated from information, markets
and materials and constrained to decision making in the current season, then the adaptation
strategies are those in practice in the local area. However, most actors have access to wider
networks, at least to the district and probably the national level. At the global level the pool
of strategies and actions would be quite large for every sector. Whether they are ‘available’
to the local community depends on processes of technology transfer, innovation and
diffusion, and lead entrepreneurs who demonstrate the local case for the strategy and/or
action.
The nature of decision making at the strategic level is less clear than for individual actions
within a strategy. For instance, if a farmer decides to improve her crop yields, the available
tools are known and choices can be represented as problems in economic, cultural or social
network decision making. However, farmer decision making regarding investment in off-

8
farm employment is likely to be more complex and situated in the social, economic and
political environment. Negotiation processes are inherent to resolving the choice the
strategies and the rules by which actions are implemented within each actor's strategy.
The domain of adaptation actions and strategies is represented by the matrix:
Da = Aa,1 = { Xa,1, … Xa,n }
Aa,2 = { Xa,1, … Xa,n }
…
Aa,n = { Xa,1, … Xa,n }
With a subset comprising those actions actually implemented (e.g., X*a,n).
Adaptive capacity (A’) is related to the set of adaptive strategies:
A’ = {Aa,1, … Aa,n}
That is, the macro-level attributes of actors’ capacity to adapt (whether wealth, information,
role in social institutions or other factors) can be related to the set of strategies that an actor
has available. For the moment, we leave open whether A’ relates to specific actors (with a
subscript, a) or is a property of an institution or resource management regime (represented as
a collection of actors).
This notation leads to a specific hypothesis. If Aa,i = Ø (there are no adaptation actions in
the set) then adaptive capacity is low. Or more generally, the number of identified strategies
(j in Aa,j) by a group of stakeholders (their portfolio) is often suggested as a measure of
adaptive capacity. That is, the existence of a range of options that could be implemented is a
measure of adaptive capacity.
A better measure of adaptive capacity would be the potential effectiveness of the different
strategies. For instance, a generalised risk assessment might be used to estimate the
outcomes of a number of stresses and shocks and to estimate the resilience of actors.
Metrics of the effectiveness of adaptive capacity are not readily available as yet. If we accept
adaptation as a socio-institutional process, then measures of that process would need to
include the range of qualitative judgements as to the adequacy of knowledge, legal
frameworks, information management, learning from pilot actions, and the like. It may be
possible to set a baseline metric based on criteria defined by the actors themselves. Social
learning and organisational change would set targets for progress from this baseline.
An experiment is underway in setting adaptation targets through the partners in the
Netherlands Climate Assistance Project (NCAP, see the section on setting targets in the wiki
at www.weADAPT.org). Based on examples from disaster risk reduction, four levels of
institutional competence can be identified for a set of common criteria. For instance, is there
a legal framework for adaptation? An unacceptable state would be if there are competing
legal mandates and no means for resolving conflicts (say between sectors or scales). The
highest level of competence might be adoption of an overarching policy framework by
parliament (for instance taking the European Framework Directive on Water into law). Not
every stakeholder or vulnerability needs to adopt the highest standard, however. We prefer
to refer to this qualitative metric of social and institutional adaptive capacity as adaptive
competence, to avoid confusion with the more common definitions of adaptive capacity
(usually relying on general indicators rather than actor-specific capabilities.
Adaptive potential (A”) is one step removed from adaptive capacity (A’). It links the
systemic driving forces of socio-institutional change (income, technology, etc.) to
actor/stakeholder adaptive capacity. Adaptive potential includes the ability to innovate,
whether creating new strategies and actions or to find existing ones outside the actor’s

9
customary network. A” is the relationship between system properties and the adaptive
capacity (specific sets of strategies) of actors/stakeholders. Thus, we see A” as a system
property not uniquely related to specific stakeholders (and does not have the subscript, a).

Reflecting on perspectives

There is no right or universal framework that covers all conditions of vulnerability,

adaptation and resilience. The range of existing, and future offerings may be viewed through
several lenses:
 Does the framework bring novel insight to generic or particular issues? Does the
insight depend on the local context or is it relevant for a specific sector, threat or
response?
 Are the frameworks incompatible? Do they assume different concepts or definitions?
Or, can their approaches be applied in concert with each other?
 What are the implications for practice? Is there a body of applications that can be
mined for lessons learned (e.g. applying the reflection required for double-loop
learning)? Do the lessons learned depend on the framing, or would they be similar
for different approaches? Can this learning inform the conceptual framework in a
way that the application can be revisited using a new lens (as in triple-loop
learning)?
 Do the frameworks resolve into similar or fundamentally different methods and
tools? Do they encourage or facilitate innovation? How do they approach the
science-policy interface? Do they have different implications for working with
stakeholders (of different types)?

Both vulnerability and resilience must

Stakeholders may (or should) bring
to a domain their own decision
frameworks, and may be reluctant (or
should be) to adopt someone else's
conceptual and analytical baggage.
If the problem does domain drive the
analytical approach, are there
conditions of application for more
general frameworks?
address the specific—who is V or R
to what, when? Both leave undefined
what is an acceptable state of V or R,
a value judgement. Both are
concerned with dynamic processes,
especially transitions and
transformations. Adaptation, as a
process, links V and R, but also
covers its own language and
concepts. VAR as an ensemble has
much to offer adaptive management.

10
 Part II: Exploring linkages, barriers and next steps

Adaptation processes that link vulnerability and resilience

Historic development

Reading the different definitions2 of adaptive capacity (AC), resilience (R) and vulnerability
(V) quickly shows how interrelated the concepts are. Often in order to explain one of the
concepts, a reference is made to another concept.
Vulnerability has been used in many different fields but its roots are in the study of natural
hazards and poverty. Generally vulnerability has a human or society-centred perspective.
This contrasts with a great deal of the early resilience literature, which focuses more
generally on eco-centric analyses. However, the use of the concept of adaptation is still
somewhat vague (Schoon 2005) though adaptation to environmental variability has been a
focus of anthropologists since the early 1900s (Janssen and Ostrom, 2006). Holling and
Walker (2003), link R to the concept of adaptation3 while climatologists and climate impacts
researchers are increasingly combining the concepts of vulnerability and adaptation. Smit
and Wandel (2006) for example see adaptations as manifestations of adaptive capacity that
represent ways of reducing vulnerability.
V and R reflect different historical and disciplinary traditions. V approaches tend to
emphasize relative differences in exposure and consequences, where the exposure unit is
often a social actor or a (non-homogeneous) group of actors. R tends to be an attribute of a
system, reflecting the functional interaction of many elements. Both V and R should be
expressed in terms of specific consequences, such as loss of livelihood or ecosystem
services.

Relationships

Both V and R claim to be relevant to AC, but the exact relationship is sometimes not so clear
due to different usages of the concepts. Adaptations could be seen as choice processes where
sets of adaptation alternatives are put into play to reduce exposure of a given system. In this
sense one could think about adaptations as the actions an entity is putting into place to react
to a stimulus in order to reduce its V or increase its R. The AC of the entity depends mainly
on the set of actions (options) available and the effectiveness of these actions. The ability (or
AC) to put such actions into place is partly influenced by the V and R of this entity.
It is sometimes said that vulnerability is the flip side of resilience. However, this is by no
means clear; obviously a resilient system is less vulnerable than a non-resilient one, but this
relation does not necessarily imply symmetry. It seems natural to view vulnerability and
resilience as related properties of an SES. But the specific nature of the relation is not
obvious (Gallopın 2006).
When analyzing AC one gets a similar picture of interconnectedness. Generally, a system
(e.g. a community) that is more exposed and sensitive to a condition or hazard will be more

2
Schoon (2005 ) gives about 20 definitions of each concept in his Short Historical Overview of the Concepts of
Resilience, Vulnerability, and Adaptation.
3
Adaptive capacity is a component of resilience that reflects a learning aspect of system behaviour in response to
disturbance.

11
vulnerable, ceteris paribus, and a system that has more adaptive capacity will tend to be less
vulnerable, ceteris paribus (Smit and Wandel 2006).
The relationships are evident but the exact nature of these relationships depends on the
definition one chooses for each concept and the context in which one applies them. 4
V and R have different entry points in the sense that until recently V had a more social and R
a more ecological focus. In more recent V research there seems to be a shift from a single
hazard to multiple risks and from a mainly static to a more dynamic view. This is in line with
the R perspective of complex and dynamic systems comprising multiple equilibriums
separated by thresholds. On the other hand resilience research is also undergoing a change as
increasingly the social aspects of resilience play a more important role. The approximation
of R and V is also reflected in the increasing cross citations between R and V literature in
recent years. This seems to indicate an increasing integration of the different knowledge
domains.5 Summarizing, one could say that the concepts try to capture related sometimes
even overlapping characteristics of a system. Ultimately, they are different manifestations of
more general processes of responses to change (Gallopın 2006).

Ambiguity - a weakness or strength?

Gallopın (2006) stresses that there is a need to develop clear specifications of the concepts
that are mutually compatible. He sees this as being critical for the interactions between social
and natural sciences in the study of coupled SES. The PIK nomenclature (Ionescu et al.,
2005) is one attempt to do so.
On the other hand one must not forget that the rich history and the corresponding diversity of
these concepts should not be lost: each one adds a new perspective to the system under
investigation. In this sense a multitude of researchers from different backgrounds find entry
points into the study of complex and dynamic SES. These different views can result in
enriched discussions or gridlock. From a collaborative point of view an ambiguous concept
can sometimes be helpful. Others may find such ambiguity a hindrance for scientific work.
Janssen and Ostrom (2006) write that the linguistic confusion should slowly be reduced as
the different scholarly communities begin to collaborate more and more. However much
work remains to be done in the creation of a concise and agreed upon definition of each the
concepts, and how to understand and generate meaningful research cross-cutting the
concepts (Schoon, 2005).
Even though there seems to be a lot of confusion about the nature of AC, R and V, the
concepts can be very useful to think about complex and dynamic systems. They can reveal
patterns which can be used to develop hypotheses, models, and theories in order to gain a
better understanding about the system under investigation.6

4
Since different intellectual traditions use the terms in different, sometimes incompatible, ways, they emerge as
strongly related but unclear in the precise nature of their relationships (Gallopın 2006).
5
A bibliographic analysis was undertaken by Janssen et. al (2006) which sheds some light on how these concepts
are related in terms of co-authorship and citation relations and therefore how they developed in the science
community.
6
For a more comprehensive analysis of AC, R and V see Gallopin (2006).The Potsdam Institute for
Climate Impact Research describes the concepts of V and AC using a mathematical approach in order to avoid
some of the limitations of natural language. Such an abstract approach might not be applicable in all situations,
but the outcome of such work will be highly valuable for computational approaches in assessing AC, R and V
(see Ionescu et al., 2005).

12
Barriers and bridges
The main barriers and bridges for integrating resilience into AWRM

The barriers and bridges to integrating VAR into water management appear to fall into three
categories: (1) the ways in which humans perceive the ecological system; (2) the limitations
of making the concepts operational; and (3) the design and practice of human institutions.
The first two categories influence the willingness to adopt new approaches and ideas. This
willingness depends mainly on what the actors, for example water managers, perceive to be
necessary and useful for them in order to deal with uncertainties and tradeoffs. On the other
hand the flexibility of the social landscape influences the capacity and ability of a
management regime, for example, to adopt novel concepts.
From this point of view, there are three corresponding entry points to analyze or influence
the factors that block or facilitate the adoption of AC, R and V - (1) changes in perceptions,
(2) operationalisation of concepts and (3) alteration of institutional arrangements,
organizational structures and network configurations within the social system.

Perception of the ecosystem

In the past water management was characterized by an engineering based approach, where
predictability was the norm rather than the exception. In order to adopt AC, R and V a shift
in thinking is required as operational decisions based on scientific knowledge and the ability
to predict outcomes will be inhibit the integration of AC, R and V into management practice.
In this way the underlying worldview of resource management may impose a gridlock on a
transition to adaptive management – opinion shifts and innovation may be inhibited by
credible authorities, who neglect the problem (Folke et al., 2005). Since an understanding of
mental models about system behaviour are crucial for an analysis of environmental problems
and the choice of measures and strategies (Pahl-Wostl 2002), the willingness to integrate
AC, R and V into management practice depends on how the stakeholders perceive the
system.
Therefore a shift in thinking and perspective in freshwater management from command and
control to complex systems thinking could facilitate the adoption of AC, R and V in river
basin management.

From command-and-control To complex systems

assume stability, control change accept change, manage for resilience
predictability, optimal control uncertainty, risk spreading, insurance
managing resources for increased yield, managing diversity for coping with change,
freshwater as input freshwater as bloodstream
technological change solve resource issues adaptive co-management builds resilience
society and nature separated social–ecological coevolution
Table 1 Freshwater for resilience: a shift in thinking (Folke 2003).
Case studies show, that closed institutional systems appear to change only when forced to by
social or ecological crises, because their primary focus is on insulating themselves, filtering
information, and maintaining existing theories and paradigms (Gunderson et al., 2006).
Moberg and Galaz (2005) note in the same tenor, that ‘until freshwater management
institutions are willing to embrace uncertainty, and to systematically learn from their actions,
AWRM is likely to fail to deal with complexity and uncertainty.’

13
Operational concepts

Do you need to measure the concepts of AC, R and V in order to be able to manage them?
The concepts of AC, R and V all face a common challenge and that is the operationalisation
and quantification of the concepts in order to put them into practice. No matter which of the
concepts one wants to put into practice, it is important to (1) use it consistently and (2) to be
precise about what in the system one wants to investigate exactly. Making AC, R or V
operational requires reducing the broad, metaphorical definitions to a set of ‘variables of
concern’ – the R or AC of what to what, the V of whom to what (Holling and Walker 2003).
There have been primary steps in measuring resilience. Two promising approaches which
could be applicable in freshwater management are (1) a framework for analyzing resilience
in SES, and (2) surrogates of resilience.
(1) Walker et al. (2002) developed a framework for analyzing and managing resilience that
should be applicable for freshwater management, and this specifies how AWRM can be
redefined to tackle uncertainty and complexity. It involves a stakeholder-driven description
of the system and the issues, leading to a limited set of scenarios that capture the major
uncertainties (Galaz, 2005).

Figure 1 Resilience analysis in AWRM (from Walker et. al 2002)

Simple but robust government policy could emerge even from a simple conceptual model of
regime shifts and resilience. Rather than enforce some particular ecological condition or
encourage certain practices to maximize production, management strategy could look in a
qualitative way at the conjunction of ecology and economy (Sendzimir 2006).
(2) Since direct measurement of resilience is difficult, Carpenter et al (2005) proposed the
use of surrogates instead of indicators to assess resilience. Ecosystems (Vol. 8, December

14
2005) includes a special feature on measuring resilience, in which four approaches of
developing resilience surrogates were discussed:
• Stakeholder assessments
• Model explorations
• Historical profiling
• Case study comparison7
The relationship between resilience and any particular surrogate may be dynamic, complex,
and multidimensional. At this explorative stage, there are only a few guidelines on how to
use resilience surrogates:
• the relationship between surrogate and resilience should be clear
• a surrogate should be consistent and repeatable
• since resilience surrogates will often be dependent on context, the specific nature of this
context should be made explicit
• the surrogate should be applicable to various SES at different times
• to assess resilience different types of surrogates should be used
Surrogates may not immediately deliver policy-ready estimates, but their use and refinement
by scientists and stakeholders may generate the deeper understanding on which good policy
is built (Sendzimir 2006).

Participatory indicators

Indicators can also be prepared as a means of facilitating local communities to learn about
ecosystem dynamics. Indicators which are developed in an open and participatory way, help
the community directly learn about ecosystem performance and thereby improves the
decision making process. Such indicators are also more flexible and adapted to the specific
stakeholders needs. Moreover, the participative process makes any potential review and
continual improvement of the indicators not only possible but also a desired part of the
process (Magnuszewski 2005). Above, we suggest qualitative metrics of adaptation may be
developed, which is consistent with the notion of multi-attribute surrogates and participatory
reflections.

Limitations of measuring resilience

Resilience needs to be operationalised further, nevertheless one might question the

usefulness of trying to encapsulate R in an index or indicator. Since indicators are static, they
will not capture the functional processes and dynamics of R.
Measuring R might be necessary but one needs to be aware of the limitations and dangers
when doing so.
Because measurements or predictions of thresholds typically have low precision, and often
ecological thresholds move over time, it is difficult to design assessment programs that learn
as fast as thresholds change. In such situations, prediction and optimization have little use
(Folke et al., 2002).
Since resilience can operate at different scales, the losses of resilience at some scales might
increase resilience at another scale (Walker et al., 2004 in Gallopin 2006). The issue of
cascading thresholds, where the crossing of a threshold at one scale triggers the system to
cross thresholds at other scales has only recently been confronted but should be kept in mind
if one tries to measure resilience.

7
Building Resilience in Lagoon Social–Ecological Systems: A Local-level Perspective by (Berkes and Seixas
2005)

15
One should not forget that the concept of resilience is partly subjective. R is not necessarily
always good. Sometimes a system is highly resilient, but the resilient state of the system is
not desirable. Or it might be desirable to some people but not to others. When managing
resilience one has to ask the question what is the desirable state? Measuring R introduces
bias because there is always a certain amount of subjectivity involved.
The dangers associated with measuring are twofold; first the goal of providing factual
knowledge to improve decision-making involves, by implication, constraining the space of
possibilities that can be explored (Pahl-Wostl 2002). And second when measuring R, the
outcome can only be an approximation – those using these results need to be aware of this
limitation. One of the main goals of R management is to avoid crossing certain thresholds to
prevent the system from moving to an undesirable configuration. Surrogates or indicators
may misguide practitioners into thinking they can use them to navigate along a certain
threshold while at the same time avoiding crossing it. If indicators, surrogates or other means
of measuring R are (mis-) used in such a way it would make the whole idea of measuring R
meaningless.
A thoughtful approach is therefore key since recommendations due to insufficient data may
cause more damage than good.

The design and practice of institutions

‘So this is the puzzle: The very success in managing a target variable for sustained
production apparently leads inevitably to an ultimate pathology of less resilient and more
vulnerable ecosystems, more rigid and unresponsive management agencies, and more
dependent societies. This seems to define the conditions for gridlock’ (Gunderson et al.,
1995).
The co-evolution of different elements of a management regime tend to stabilize each other
and make the prevailing management regime resistant to change (Pahl-Wostl 2006). The
strong interdependence of management practices, legal frameworks and social norms,
combined with a long-established infrastructure results in lock-in effects (Pahl-Wostl 2002).
These stabilize the current management regime and prevent innovation and change (Pahl-
Wostl 2002).
Under such circumstances it is very difficult to introduce new concepts such as AC, R and V.
Often the prevailing management regime will resist adopting new concepts and management
approaches, even if the limitations of the existing approach become apparent. This is often
the case because decision makers have developed subjective mental models on how the
system they are managing functions and how best to address the problems they are facing.
When confronted with new concepts such as AC, R and V there can be a tendency to reject
them because they do not combine easily with their mental model. This mental model can be
biased towards a hydrological/engineering systems approach and may not consider the
effects of complex and dynamic social vulnerability, multiple stresses and the ways in which
these limit adaptive capacity in water management regimes.
In the past, complex social dynamics, such as trust building and power relations, have been
underestimated and the view of social relationships simplified. Consequently, many attempts
for ecosystem stewardship have failed (Folke et al., 2005). The people who are affected by
the policies often become ignored or detached from the institutions established to serve
them. To open a management system for innovation and change requires the involvement
and education of the people who are part of the system – this is crucial in order to building
resilient solutions and remove gridlocks. It is these people who are often ignored in the
decision making process, that provide the ‘pool’ for creative and adaptive solutions
(Gunderson, et al 1995).

16
Looking forward
Attempting to integrate the concepts of adaptive capacity, resilience and vulnerability into
AWRM (an approach which is increasingly criticized for its difficulty in implementation)
could further increase the gap between research and policy/action. Instead one should focus
on the social features that enhance adaptive capacity and resilience and enable the emergence
of more adaptive water management processes. Such features seem to include processes of
social learning, network configurations, institutional arrangements and organizational
structures.
Holling mentioned three defining characteristics of resilience.8 The first relates to the
operationalisation of resilience, by trying to measure the amount of change the system can
undergo and still be in the same state. The two other characteristics, the capability to self-
organize and learning and adaptation have received less attention.
However, Folke (2003) and Olsson (2004) have identified (social) features that are required
in an adaptive management process to deal with the dynamics (and uncertainties) of social-
ecological systems. Features which enhance resilience and flexibility of a SES, include the
following:
• vision, leadership and trust
• enabling legislation that creates social space for eco-system management
• funds for responding to environmental change and for remedial action
• capacity for monitoring and responding to environmental feedback
• information and knowledge flow through social networks
• the combination of various sources of information and knowledge, and
• sense-making and arenas of collaborative learning for ecosystem management.

Figure 2 It’s all in the mind: the standard perception of freshwater management leads to
inflexible, and often ineffective, command-and-control approaches (left); accounting for
ecological complexity opens avenues to adaptability which builds better resilience to, for
example, flooding. Illustration by Henrik Ernstson (Moberg, Galaz 2005).

8
(1) The amount of change the system can undergo and still be in the same state.
(2) The degree to which the system is capable of self-organization.
(3) The ability to build and increase the capacity for learning and adaptation (Holling and Walker 2003).

17
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Berkes, F., & Seixas, C. S. (2005). Building resilience in lagoon Social–Ecological systems:
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Carpenter, S. R., Westley, F., & Turner, M. G. (2005). Surrogates for resilience of Social–
Ecological systems. Ecosystems, 8(8), 941-944.
Folke, C. (2003). Freshwater for resilience: A shift in thinking. Philosophical Transactions:
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Resilience and Freshwater Initiative”, Swedish Water House, Stockholm,
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cutting theme of the international human dimensions programme on global environmental
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Pahl-Wostl, C. (2002). Towards sustainability in the water sector-the importance of human
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19
 Part III: Supporting material

Brainstorming vulnerability and resilience: Report of the Hortobagy

discussions in the NeWater project
At the NeWater General Assembly in Hortobagy (October 2006), a group of experts met to
review concepts in vulnerability and resilience. We split into two groups to brainstorm on
key concepts and concerns. The result from each group is shown in Figure 3. This annex
presents the summary of the discussion.
The 'vulnerability group' began our discussion with the question of whether there is anything
vulnerability analysis offers us that resilience analysis does not. Should an analysis through a
resilience lens only be applied to ecological systems? Can it apply to socio-ecological
systems? We discussed that since there is an increasing trend in the resilience community to
focus more on social aspects of the system under study, and a trend within the vulnerability
community to focus on the dynamic aspects of vulnerability, there is much that each school
of thought can learn from the other. The resilience community has done much work on
issues of rapid as well slow change which is useful for newly emerging analyses of dynamic
vulnerability. In systems where rapid social change may create thresholds and tipping points
which will place the system into an altogether new state, an analysis through a resilience
framework may offer new insights regarding the dynamic nature of vulnerability. However,
personal preferences and cultural factors were discussed as the main features which may be
overlooked through the resilience lens.
The single element that was viewed as absolutely central to the entire framework of a
vulnerability analysis was the will to collaborate/experiment and interestingly, it was
recognised by the group that this also appeared in the resilience discussion, in the form of
willingness to change. The way in which this common element manifests itself within the
system under study will inhibit or promote the level of adaptive capacity.
Keywords that emerged in the brainstorm were clustered:
Culture
• ethnicity
• gender aspects (e.g. female headed households)
Wellbeing
• health
• HIV/Aids
Coping/adapting: capacity to anticipate and respond to change/risk
• diversity
• multiple stress
• current coping/adaptation strategies
• risk assessment framework
Institutional: institutional frameworks and participation at various levels
• participation in decision-making (e.g. water user’s associations)
• legal/illegal farmers

20
 • power
• risk mitigating institutions (e.g. insurance, transparency)
• legal rights vs. history of use
Learning
• flow of information
• climate information (e.g. seasonal climate forecasts)
• education and learning
• possibility of activating unused rights
Markets
• compensation and/or adjustment assistance
• source of income (livelihoods analysis)
• credit/micro-finance
• access to markets
Environment
• wetlands – degradation of ecosystem functions
• climate variability
• size of aquifer
Perception
• purpose of the vulnerability assessment
• discontinuity
• profile of the threat and relation to (human) wellbeing
• self-perception (perception of vulnerability)
• mutual dependency (up/down-stream)
Preference
• trust
• will to collaborate/experiment
• threshold effects
• unsustainable upstream abstraction
The 'resilience group' began with a discussion on whether it was necessary to agree on a
definition within the group prior to continuing with the exercise. Different ideas about how
to define resilience where put forward. Three defining characteristics where proposed: (1)
the ability of a system to recover from a shock (2) the ability for self-organization and (3) the
ability for learning and adaptation. The first of these characteristics is probably the most
often associated characteristic of resilience, but was later profoundly debated. The discussion
centred on the issue of whether resilience is a measure of the ability of a system to withstand
shocks or the time the system needs to recover from a shock?

21
Since resilience is defined in different ways, a debate evolved around the issue. There was a
general agreement that it is helpful to use resilience within a specific context, since explicitly
identifying resilience of what to what, makes the concepts more accessible and practical.
At this point the discussion came back to the definition of resilience. The question was
asked, when determining the ability of a system to recover from a shock, is there a need to
define (1) the norm to which the system recovers to? and (2) the features one wants to
preserve or maintain? The scale at which resilience is being studied becomes an important
consideration. Do the definitions and the observed features differ when applied at a
household or a community scale, to a species or an ecosystem?
Resilience to unknown shocks was also mentioned. How can resilience be understood when a
shock to the system is unknown, how does this fit in with the potential need to define
resilience of whom/what to what. The example of 9/11 was given.
How does resilience relate to the concept of transformation? It was brought up that if
resilience is only about the recovery of a system to its initial/original state, then resilience
might be a hindrance for transformation, which can be good or bad depending on the
situation. A link to adaptation was made here, questioning whether adaptation was a process
by which achieving a new state was hindered or avoided or whether it was in itself a
transformation process. This notion was taken up by one of the participants, stating that since
resilience is a subjective term, it might be necessary to first lower resilience (of an
undesirable state) before increasing resilience (of a desirable state) again. In this case
resilience management would be necessary for the transformation of the system. This would
mean that resilience management and transition management are closely linked. On the other
hand, there was a debate about how exactly resilience is different from resistance and what
role the willingness to change plays in this context. A society or group of actors not willing
to change, would be resisting change, but would probably not be resilient.
It was proposed that resilience management is about manoeuvring within some configuration
of acceptable states. In order to be able to avoid shifting to an unacceptable state, it is critical
to avoid crossing the threshold of a system. The problem of assessing where a threshold
persists especially when the threshold is moving was brought up.
Features influencing resilience and practices that can enhance resilience where mentioned in
the discussion. Since many societies have developed robust management practice for the
environments they life in, building resilience should include using local / traditional
knowledge and practices. In changing environments, traditions can be a source of resilience,
preserving the core function of a community or ecosystem. In some instances however they
can be negative as they are no longer suited to the prevailing environment but are held onto.
This therefore called for the need to continuously or periodically re-assess practices to decide
which are beneficial and which are detrimental. This can be understood as a process of social
learning. In general diversity was seen as a critical source of resilience, both in the
ecosystem and the social system. Greater diversity of for example species, knowledge or
institutions should generally lead to higher resilience. Within the social system the need for
good leadership was brought up.
The resilience brainstorm produced the following list of key concepts:
• Ability of a system to recover from a shock, self-organisation, learning / adaptation
• Ability to withstand shocks / time to recover
• Is the concept only useful in a specific context?
• Resilience of what to what?
• Resilience as maintaining features → Need to define the norm to recover to

22
 • Need to define features one wants to preserve / maintain
• Resilience of household, community, species, ecosystem > on what scale to apply
• Resilience to unknown shocks
• Recovery vs. transformation
• Resilience not resistance
• Willingness to change
• Moving threshold
• Keep system within an agreed range
• Need good leadership
• Building on local / traditional knowledge / practice
• Role of traditions in changing environments → Need for (re) assessment of practices
> social learning → Appropriateness of rate of adaptation
• Greater diversity = higher resilience?

Figure 3 Brainstorming on vulnerability (above) and resilience (below)

23
Annex: The RAVCOM framework
Systems Framework for Resilience, Adaptive Capacity and Vulnerability Assessment
using Computer Modelling and Simulations.
Piotr Magnuszewski, Jan Sendzimir
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis

Introduction

The goal of this paper is to describe a systems framework for Resilience, Adaptive Capacity
and Vulnerability (RAV) Assessment using Computer Modelling. Our intention is to provide
a methodology as to how to use computer modelling for RAV Assessment, which itself can
be a part of a larger RAV assessment framework. We provide a formalization of RAV
concepts, to facilitate their incorporation in using computer modelling to assist in RAV
assessment. In addition, we hope that this formalization will contribute to ongoing discussion
on the meaning of RAV terms. We assume here that “computer modelling” is one of the
dynamic modelling methodologies (e.g. Agent-Based Modelling, System Dynamics or
Spatially Explicit Modelling) which may have diverse representations of a systems state (e.g.
variables, vectors, grids, networks) and rules for system evolution in time. Our framework
for Resilience, Adaptive Capacity and Vulnerability Assessment using Computer Modelling
(RAVACOM) is intended to be a meta-framework incorporating different RAV definitions
and modelling methodologies. RAVACOM framework is inherently dynamic.
The RAVACOM framework is presented in the following sections. We start with a formal
framework for vulnerability. Vulnerability is defined as a relationship between a threat and
its consequence. Then we elaborate a systems approach used for computer modelling and
simulations so as to provide a methodology to relate different existing conceptualizations of
vulnerability. A formal framework for Vulnerability is presented more thoroughly for
deterministic models including a special static case. Stochastic models will be treated in a
separate paper. Based on this vulnerability definition adaptive capacity is defined as a
difference between the vulnerabilities of a system with and without adaptation processes.
Finally resilience is introduced as a measure of the potential for a system to move through
sudden, often surprising, transitions between a system’s stability domains. All ideas and
concepts introduced in the paper are illustrated using a stylized model of lake eutrophication.

Formal Framework for Vulnerability

There are many different definitions of vulnerability and related concepts. So far no
commonly agreed definition of vulnerability has emerged. (Brooks 2003) summarizes
current situation in vulnerability research:
The growing body of literature on vulnerability and adaptation contains a sometimes
bewildering array of terms: vulnerability, sensitivity, resilience, adaptation, adaptive
capacity, risk, hazard, coping range, adaptation baseline and so on (IPCC, 2001; Adger et al.,
2002; Burton et al., 2002). The relationships between these terms are often unclear, and the
same term may have different meanings when used in different contexts and by different
authors. Researchers from the natural hazards field tend to focus on the concept of risk,
while those from the social sciences and climate change field often prefer to talk in terms of
vulnerability (Downing et al., 2001; Allen, 2003). Social scientists and climate scientists
often mean different things when they use the term “vulnerability”; whereas social scientists
tend to view vulnerability as representing the set of socio-economic factors that determine
people’s ability to cope with stress or change (Allen, 2003), climate scientists often view

24
vulnerability in terms of the likelihood of occurrence and impacts of weather and climate
related events (Nicholls et al., 1999).
Different vulnerability conceptualizations treat vulnerability as a kind of system property.
We understand a system here as including both hazard and exposure units. There is an
argument to what extent vulnerability is a part of a threat (hazard) and to what extent it is a
part of an exposure unit. (Chambers 1989) introduced to sides of vulnerability:
Vulnerability here refers to exposure to contingencies and stress, and difficulty in coping
with them. Vulnerability thus has two sides: an external side of risks, shocks and stress to
which an individual or household is subject, and an internal side which is defencelessness,
meaning a lack of means to cope without damaging loss.
But drawing a precise boundary between these two sides seems to be rather tricky and the
whole subject has still many controversies (Messner and Meyer, 2005) defined vulnerability
as some system characteristic but they also propose to express it as a relationship (function):
Vulnerability can be defined by the characteristics of a system that describe its potential to
be harmed. It can be expressed in terms of functional relationships between expected
damages regarding all elements at risk and the susceptibility and exposure characteristics of
the affected system, referring to the whole range of possible flood hazards.
In this spirit, instead of treating vulnerability as a system property we propose to define
vulnerability as a relationship between a threat (or a group of threats) and its consequence (or
a group of consequences). This shift from property to relationship looks simple but it
changes the way one thinks about vulnerability. As we demonstrate below it clarifies the
concept and provides a formal representation. This definition is rather a meta-definition and
embraces many existing definitions.
Following (Downing and Patwardhan) our definition (Figure 1) requires one to specify who
is vulnerable (exposure unit – sector, group etc.) to what (threat, hazard) and with what
possible consequence (impact, effect).

Threat Consequence
Vulnerability
Hazard(s) Effects
Shock(s) T c Impacts
Stress(es) V s ,g
Outcomes

Exposure Unit
Sector, Group, ...
Figure 1: Vulnerability as a relationship between a threat and a consequence.
Formally, vulnerability will be represented as an operator (transformation) of some (possibly
complex) element of a threat space into a consequence space. Threat space is defined as all
possible threat representations (can be numbers, functions; possibly distributed or spatial).
Consequence space is defined analogously. Usually it is not possible to define a vulnerability
operator analytically. Analytic (closed-form) formulas can be sometimes obtained in a static
case. For a dynamic vulnerability an operator is defined through a computer model. After
specifying how threat components change in time the model has to be run to obtain how
consequence variables depend on time. Different patterns of change in specific threat
components would generate different patterns of change in corresponding consequence
variables.

25
Having defined vulnerability as a relationship we can examine it on different levels of
complexity in terms of analysis potential:
 On a most complex level of the original definition vulnerability contains all
information (contained in the model) on causal effects between a chosen threat and
its corresponding consequence(s). However as threat and consequence can have a
complex, dynamic representation this relationship is difficult to grasp and use in an
assessment process.
 On a middle level of complexity vulnerability is represented through vulnerability
functions illustrating graphically how a selected consequence variable depends on a
selected threat parameter. It can be necessary to use many such functions to
represent a particular vulnerability comprehensively. This level of representation is
similar to damage functions used in many vulnerability assessments. For river flood
management a classic example of vulnerability would relate a threat (flood height
above the floodplain) to its consequence (damages) (Figure 2).

Figure 2: A sample damage curve for residential properties. The damage is expressed as a function
of water depth only. The curves are drawn for an unprepared community (blue line) and a prepared
community (red). The latter would, for example, have moved their valuables to the first floor (i.e. to
about 3m) (after Biza et al. 2001).

 One of the simplest representations of vulnerability is through indicators.

Vulnerability indicators can be obtained as projections from more complex
representations. This has an advantage of simplicity in presentation. Also an order
relation can be defined allowing comparisons between different vulnerabilities.
However there is a danger of oversimplification - there may be a cases when it is not
possible to say whether a given strategy lowers or raises vulnerability as it may
depend on other factors (e.g. hazard intensity).

26
3. Systems Approach to Vulnerability

Many frameworks for vulnerability provide a definition and relate it to other higher-level (in
terms of the level of aggregation) concepts like hazard, exposure, coping ability, impact,
adaptive capacity etc. Relationships between these concepts constitute many conceptual
frameworks. The RAVACOM meta-framework allows many conceptualizations and
relations between used concepts. For any particular framework used RAVACOM requires
one to:
 make a distinction between a system’s state and the rules (transformation) changing
its state,
 identify variables related higher level concepts (some variables can be related to
more than one concept).
An example of such a framework is presented in Figure 3.

27
 28
Figure 3: Example of a vulnerability conceptual framework integrated with systems approach.
Hazards Variables(1)
Shocks, Stresses Mitigation
Hazards Variables(2)
Hazard Evolution
Mitigation Variables Mitigation Variables
& Rules(1) Mitigation & Rules(2)

Exposure Variables (1) Exposure Variables (2)

Deterioration
Direct Effects of Hazards
Deterio ration
Copin g Deterioration
Coping

Coping Ability Autonomous Coping Ability

Variables & Rules(1) Coping Adaptation Variables & Rules(2)
...
Damage Damage
Planned
Variables(1) Variables(2)
Adaptatio n Adaptation
Deterioratio n Decreasing Exposure
Capacity Increasing Coping Range
Building Capacity Building

Adaptive Capacity Adaptive Capacity

Variables & Rules(1) Variables & Rules(2)
Transformation

System State S 1 System State S 2

Time
4. Vulnerability Framework for a Deterministic Model

In this section we present a more detailed treatment of a formal part of the RAVACOM
framework. We assume that any computer model used here will be deterministic. This means
that input and output will be deterministic time series (functions of time). Expansion of the
framework to encompass stochastic models will require a change from time series to
stochastic processes – this will be done in a separate paper.
Static Case
First we present a special static case where model input and output are not time dependent.
This assumption sometimes can be used for assessment of vulnerability to extreme events. In
such cases vulnerability is formally represented as a multidimensional mapping from a threat
parameters9 space to a consequence variables space.
Threat is characterized by its parameters and is formally represented as a vector in a Threat
parameters space:
Threat = [T1,...,TN].
Threat space is defined as all possible values of a set of variables or parameters (possibly
distributed or spatial) representing a threat. In many vulnerability assessments one-
dimensional threat representation is used. For example in most flood damage assessments
threat is characterized exclusively with flood inundation. However in a more comprehensive
flood damage analysis we could define threat as a vector of diverse parameters:
Flood Threat = [inundation, wave velocity, turbulence, duration, toxic load].
Consequence is formally represented as a vector in a Consequence variables space:
Consequence = [C1,...,CM].
Both threat and consequence can have more complex representation such as a grid or
network. Hazard’s consequences are usually expressed as a damage or loss in monetary
terms. They can be disaggregated into different categories (see Figure 4 as an example).

Figure 4: (After (Messner and Meyer, 2000)) Depth-damage-functions for different asset
categories.

9
We refer to threat parameters in a simulation context – they are model parameters. When we use
them to construct vulnerability mapping they become independent variables.

29
As (Messner and Meyer, 2005) point out one of the big challenges is to expand the
consequence representation to include intangible flood effects (e.g. long-term health effects,
disruption of social ties etc.).
(Static) vulnerability is a mapping which for any given threat allows one to compute its
consequence. For this case both threat and consequence do not change in time.

Vulnerability Mapping V
Threat Consequence

V : [ T1 ,...T N] → [ C1 ,...CM]
or
[ C1 ,...CM] = V( [ T 1,...TN] ) Consequence = V( Threat )

A relationship between threat and a consequence has to be approximated with an analytic

(closed-form) formula or alternatively some algorithm can be applied.
On a middle level of complexity vulnerability functions can provide information that can be
represented graphically as a set of relationships between a chosen threat parameter and a
selected consequence variable (see Figure 2 as an example).
Dynamic Case
In a dynamic case both threat and consequence can change in time. This allows us to analyze
vulnerability in more complex situations such as when stresses grow over time. Vulnerability
now reflects a richer relationship than that portrayed in the static case - a function of one
variable. Vulnerability in the dynamic case relates different functions of time. In the static
case a set of numbers as an input generates a set of numbers as an output. In the dynamic
case, a set of functions as input generates a set of functions as output. For example, when
addressing vulnerability questions related to climate change we might consider how two
functions (changes in time of average temperature and of average precipitation) generate a
set of functions (changes in average flood peak height and in flood frequency). Such a
relationship is formally represented through an operator. Thus vulnerability is formally
represented as an operator from a threat functional space to a consequence functional space.
Threat is a vector of functions in a threat functional space.
Threat = [T1(t),...TN(t)]
Threat is parameterized with Tp1,...,TpN
Consequence is a vector of functions in a consequence functional space
Consequence = [C1(t),...,CM(t)]
Vulnerability is an operator from a threat functional space to a consequence functional space:

30
 Vulnerability Operator V
Threat(t) Consequence(t)

V : [T1(t),...TN(t) ] → [ C1(t),...CM(t) ]
or
[ C 1(t),...CM(t) ] = V( [ T 1(t),...TN(t) ] ) Consequence(t) =V ( Threat(t) ) .
This operator for most real systems cannot be approximated analytic formulas. A computer
model can take the role of this operator and transform threats into consequences.
It is rather difficult to grasp operators as abstract logical expressions, and there aren’t
graphical ways to represent it. For most it is easier to visualize a relationship between a set
of numbers (function of one variable) than a relationship between a set of functions. In order
to reduce representation complexity we can “describe” an operator through a series of
functions of one variable. To this end we have to choose one parameter of a threat function
and define a numeric characteristic of a consequence. We define a consequence
characteristic Cc as a functional (a mapping from functions space to real numbers) on
consequence functional space:
Cc: [C1(t),...,CM(t)] → R
A typical example of a functional can be accumulated cost for a given cost function changing
in time. Other options include average value or other statistical characteristics. For a given
vulnerability operator we can define many such functional and in this way we can
characterize a consequence with a series of numbers. Now it is possible to obtain
vulnerability functions as relations between one of the threat functions parameters and one of
the consequence characteristics. In any real assessment it will be necessary to define many
such functions for a more comprehensive analysis.
EXAMPLE – Lake Eutrophication
This stylized example is based on a classic shallow lake eutrophication model (Scheffer
2001). Phosphorus is added to the soil through farmer’s practices to increase the crop
yield (Figure 4). Part of phosphorus is removed from the system through harvest but a
part of it gets to a lake. Because accumulations take time that generate delayed
feedbacks, there is a nonlinear exchange of phosphorus between water and sediments.
A rapid transition between the “clear” and “murky” stability domains can happen when
the phosphorus concentration in the lake water exceeds a threshold.
<P Input to
Soil>
Phosphorus
Sedimentation
Phosphorus Phosphorus Phosphorus
in Water in Sediments Phosphorus
in Soil Phosphorus Burial
Phosphorus +
Input to Lake
Input to Soil
Phosphorus
Recycling

Phosphorus Phosphorus
in Harvest Flushed

Crop Yield

Figure 4: Stock and flow diagram of phosphorus exchanges in the model.

31
The main sources of regional incomes come from agriculture and tourism (Figure 5).
Phosphorus is provided to soil through fertilizers, which to some extent increases crop
yields. But at the same time it increases phosphorus input to the lake raising the danger
of eutrophication. Profits from tourism can be drastically reduced when the lake
becomes eutrophic.
<Phosphorus in
Water>
Crop Price
Crop Yield
Profits from
Agricultural Tourism
Revenues
Agricultural Accumulated
Profits Regional Profits
<Phosphorus Fertilizers Regional
Input to Soil> Cost Profits

Unit Fertilizers
Cost

Figure 5: Regional profits and its ingredients (arrows signify causal influence).

As an example of the RAVACOM framework application we use it here to define a

specific vulnerability, that of regional profit loss to agricultural phosphorus use for the
stylized lake system VLE.
Threat – phosphorus input to soil – PIS(t)
Consequence – regional profits – RP(t)
Simulation of the model is used to compute RP(t) given PIS(t):
RP(t) = VLE(PIS(t)).
On an operator level we can observe how different inputs (assumptions on phosphorus
input to soil) are transformed into outputs (regional profits). Examples of these
transformations are presented on Figure 6.

32
Figure 6: Examples of vulnerability operator actions - transformations of inputs
(assumptions on phosphorus input to soil) into outputs (regional profits).

Using a vulnerability operator (in the form of a computer model) we can observe many
examples of individual input-output relationships. This is useful to build intuition based
on a cumulative impression of the effects of these relationships. However, despite the
appeal of this natural representation, it is not possible to explore all of these
relationships. So we cannot fully grasp the whole picture in this way. Vulnerability
functions can help to present threat-consequence relationship in a compact way
aggregating many threat-consequence series on one graph. However, using this
technique, we also loose some information – time series of threat and consequence are
reduced to points on a graph.

33
 Graph for P Input to Soil
0,8

0,7

0,6

0,5

0,4
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30
Time (Year)

P Input to Soil : Current1 mg/(Year*l)

Figure 7: Step function example.

In order to define a vulnerability function we have to choose some form of the threat
function and select one of its parameters. As an example we choose a step function
(Figure 7) of phosphorus input to soil for the system set at equilibrium. Our threat
parameter (independent variable for a vulnerability function) will be step height
representing a sudden increase in phosphorus load. Now we have to define a dependent
variable for our vulnerability function – for this we need to define a functional
transforming a regional profits function RP(t) into a number. One possibility is to
define accumulated regional profits ARP as a sum of regional profits over simulation
time:
ARP = ∑ RP(t ) .
The vulnerability function we thereby obtain is presented on Figure 8. One can observe
that for a moderate (smaller than 0.4) increases in a phosphorus load profits increase as
crop yields also increase. Larger increases of phosphorus input (0.4 – 0.65) does not
produce any better effect, either because crop yield no longer responds to higher
phosphorus or because in this range productivity increase is already not faster than
costs increase. For larger values of phosphorus load the lake becomes eutrophic, which
drastically reduces income from tourism.

34
 Vulnerability Function

85000

Accumulated Regional Profits

80000

75000

70000

65000

60000
55000

50000
-0.1 0.1 0.3 0.5 0.7 0.9
Increase in Phosphorus Load

Figure 8: Vulnerability function example for the lake eutrophication model – accumulated
regional profits as a function of a step increase in phosphorus input to soil.

Adaptive Capacity

For a given threat Adaptive Capacity is the potential for adaptations, which can reduce
vulnerability to this threat. This potential may increase with our ability (emerging from the
capacity to modify capital (natural, built, human, social)) to learn, experiment and innovate
so as to respond to shock and stress in ways that diminish them over the medium to long-
term. Surveys of the wide variety of activities that can contribute to that potential may be
comprehensive, but how do all these factors work individually or together to build that
potential? Following (Luers et al. 2004) we propose to define adaptive capacity as a
difference between vulnerability with and without adaptation processes. We define an
adaptive capacity operator AC as:
AC = VB - VA
where:
VB – baseline vulnerability operator (without adaptation),
VA – vulnerability operator with adaptation.
For a given threat T an adaptive capacity operator allows one to compute a vector of
functions representing how a difference (between a case with adaptation and without
adaptation) in consequences C of this threat change in time:
AC(T)(t) = VB (T)(t) - VA (T)(t) = CB(t) – CA(t).
For a “bigger” adaptive capacity we expect that this consequence difference should increase
in time faster, reflecting “lowering” of vulnerability. For an extreme value of “no adaptive
capacity” the difference will be zero. We should be careful however with using words
“bigger” or “lower” because for operators or even functions we cannot define a natural order
relation as it can be done for numbers.
In order to compute adaptive capacity in a computer model used for assessment, adaptation
processes have to be selected in the model in such a way that it is possible to put them on
and off.

35
In the same way as vulnerability we can analyze adaptive capacity on different levels of
complexity using functions and indicators. Particularly we can define a functional on the
functions of consequence differences, which will allow us to obtain numerical measures of
adaptive capacity.

EXAMPLE – Lake Eutrophication, continued

In order to illustrate the above definition of adaptive capacity we modify the lake
eutrophication model adding the possibility to filter some of the phosphorus before it
reaches the lake (Figure 9).
<Adopters>

P Filtering
Capacity
Phosphorus
Filtered
<P Input to
P Runoff
Soil>
from Soil

Phosphorus in Phosphorus in
Soil Water
Phosphorus Input Phosphorus
to Soil Input to Lake

Figure 9: Phosphorus filtering affecting amount of phosphorus input to lake.

For this filtering function to be effective requires farmers to adopt new practices which
are modelled collectively as an innovation diffusion process (Figure 10).

Potential
Adopters
Adopters Filter Adoption

Filter Contact Rate

Adoption
Fraction

<Phosphorus in
Effect of P in Water
Water>
on Filter Adoption

Figure 10: Innovation adoption of phosphorus filtering by farmers.

Adaptive Capacity can be seen as a difference between vulnerability with and without
the adaptation process (Figure 11) over a range of values of Increase in Phosphorus Load
(IPL). For low IPL values there is no difference between these vulnerabilities because
eutrophication does not occur. For IPL values between 0.65 and 0.8 the difference
between vulnerability functions reflects the impact of the adaptation process. For IPL
values above 0.8 no matter how farmers adapt (using filtering possibility) the lake gets
eutrophic.

36
 Vulnerability Functions

85000

Accumulated Regional Profits

80000

75000

70000 V
65000 Va

60000

55000

50000
-0.1 0.1 0.3 0.5 0.7 0.9
Increase in Phosphorus Load

Figure 11: Vulnerability functions for simulations with and without adaptation process.
Figure 12 shows the difference between vulnerability functions explicitly.

Adaptive Capacity Function

30000

25000
Profits Difference

20000

15000

10000

5000

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
Increase in Phosphorus Load

Figure 12: Adaptive capacity function example for the lake eutrophication model.

Resilience

Resilience as defined by Holing (1973) has three defining characteristics:

 The amount of change a system can undergo (and, therefore, the amount of stress it
can sustain) and still retain the same controls on function and structure (still be in the
same configuration - within the same domain of attraction).
 The degree to which the system is capable of self-organization.
 The degree to which the system expresses capacity for learning and adaptation.
In this framework our main goal is formalization and quantification, so we focus only on the
first characteristic. Vulnerability operators and functions provide information on all changes

37
in a system state induced by some hazards. Resilience analysis focuses on sudden and abrupt
changes in system’s stability domains. It allows us also to analyze hysteretic behaviour
related to irreversible changes.

Conclusions

RAVACOM at the moment is not a complete framework embracing all aspects off
vulnerability, adaptive capacity, resilience and relationships between these concepts. It is
rather a methodology providing guidance on how to use computer modelling for RAV
assessment. As computer models require quantified inputs and outputs it is necessary to
quantify RAV concepts. We tried to make RAV definitions broad enough to allow diverse
assessment methods to be used. However, our definitions may not include some RAV
aspects and in particular we are aware that formalization may leave behind some important
qualitative characteristics. But even qualitative conceptualizations can be improved through
adding precision and in this way we hope to promote an idea of vulnerability as a
relationship to bring together some apparently distant meanings of vulnerability.

38
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