Assessing Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity Event

Time:: 15:00 - 16:00
Date:: 6 February 2013
Venue:: Building 44, Room 1089 Highfield Campus

For more information regarding this event, please telephone Emma Tompkins on 02380 594597 or email e.l.tompkins@soton.ac.uk .

Event details

All faculty, post-docs and PhD students are invited to the 5th meeting of the 'Human dimensions of Resilience, Adaptation and Vulnerability' DISCUSSION GROUP.

This weeks' focus is on: Assessing Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity

We will meet in the Geog&Env coffee room 44/1089 on Wednesday 6^th February 2013 from 3.00-4.00pm to discuss the two attached papers:

Brooks, N., W.N. Adger and P.M. Kelly, 2005. The determinants of vulnerability and adaptive capacity at the national level and the implications for adaptation. Global Environmental Change, 15: 151-163.
Hinkel, J., 2011. "Indicators of vulnerability and adaptive capacity": Towards a clarification of the science-policy interface. Global Environmental Change, 21: 198-208.

Please feel free to circulate to all UoS PhD students, post docs and faculty - all of whom are welcome, but please email Dr. Emma L. Tompkins to confirm your attendance.

Background to the group

A small group of UoS researchers (post-doc and PhD) and staff have decided to meet every 3 weeks, to discuss the following ideas:

- ecological resilience
- social resilience
- measurement /monitoring of resilience / safe operating spaces
- adaptive capacity
- vulnerability (incl measurement)
- hazards/ disasters / catastrophes related to resilience
- the role of institutions / social capital/ networks/behaviours/ assets and obligations in informing resilience
- intentionality/human agency and the capacity to cause /influence
- neoliberalism and the politics of resilience

Previous readings by this group:

Wk 1: Adger, W.N., 2000. Social and ecological resilience: are they related? Progress in Human Geography, 24: 347-364.

Wk 2a: Eakin, H. and A. Luers, 2006. Assessing the vulnerability of social-environmental systems. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 31: 365-394.

Wk 2b:Walker, B., C.S. Hollin, S.R. Carpenter and A. Kinzig, 2004. Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society, 9.

Wk 3a: Rockstrom, J., W. Steffen, K. Noone, A. Persson, F.S. Chapin, E.F. Lambin, T.M. Lenton, M. Scheffer, C. Folke, H.J. Schellnhuber, B. Nykvist, C.A. de Wit, T. Hughes, S. van der Leeuw, H. Rodhe, S. Sorlin, P.K. Snyder, R. Costanza, U. Svedin, M. Falkenmark, L. Karlberg, R.W. Corell, V.J. Fabry, J. Hansen, B. Walker, D. Liverman, K. Richardson, P. Crutzen and J.A. Foley, 2009. A safe operating space for humanity. Nature, 461: 472-475.

Wk3b: Wang, R., J.A. Dearing, P.G. Langdon, E. Zhang, X. Yang, V. Dakos and M. Scheffer, 2012. Flickering gives early warning signals of a critical transition to a eutrophic lake state. Nature, advance online publication.

Wk 4a: Klein, R.J.T., R.J. Nicholls and F. Thomalla, 2003. Resilience to natural hazards: How useful is this concept? Global Environmental Change Part B: Environmental Hazards, 5: 35-45.

WK4b: Vogel, C., S.C. Moser, R.E. Kasperson and G.D. Dabelko, 2007. Linking vulnerability, adaptation, and resilience science to practice: pathways, players, and partnerships. Global Environmental Change, 17: 349-364.

Wk 5a: Brooks, N., W.N. Adger and P.M. Kelly, 2005. The determinants of vulnerability and adaptive capacity at the national level and the implications for adaptation. Global Environmental Change, 15: 151-163.

Wk 5b: Hinkel, J., 2011. "Indicators of vulnerability and adaptive capacity": Towards a clarification of the science-policy interface. Global Environmental Change, 21: 198-208.

Looking forward to the discussion.

Emma Tompkins