A Conceptual Framework for Urban Vulnerability Analysis in Sustainability Science: Integrating Socio-Ecological-Technological Systems

Authors

Rinku Roy Chowdhury - Clark University, Guy Hydrick - Clark University, Chingwen Cheng - Arizona State University, Allain Barnett - Florida International University, David Eisenmann - UCLA, Jenniffer Santos-Hernandez - University of Puerto Rico, Vivek Shandas - Portland State University

Body

We examine urban vulnerability to climate extremes, with an approach integrating Vulnerability Science and Socio-Ecological-Technological systems (SETs) frameworks. The rich history of vulnerability research and assessments derives from diverse disciplinary perspectives and concerns through time. These perspectives, while invaluable in highlighting key dimensions of societal vulnerability to various stressors, are frequently partial; focus on configurations or outcomes rather than processes; are often static rather than dynamic, or lack an explicit focus on power relations. Here, we undertake an integrated approach to vulnerability analysis that conceptualizes vulnerability for urban systems in particular, examines SETs dimensions, and highlights the need to pay attention to processes of marginalization in the production of vulnerability. We review empirical case studies of urban vulnerability to climate threats such as sea level rise, flood events, heat and drought, while building on the seminal framework for “vulnerability analysis in sustainability science” (Turner et al. 2003) and the three main dimensions of vulnerability (Polsky et al. 2007): exposure, sensitivity and coping capacity. Our aims are twofold: to advance the vulnerability framework for the particular complexities of urban systems as coupled socio-ecological-technological systems, and highlight the trends, synergies and gaps in the empirical literature vis-à-vis attention to particular SETs domains, and with respect to the three dimensions of vulnerability. References: Turner et al. 2003. A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100(14): 8074-8079. Polsky et al. 2007. Building comparable global change vulnerability assessments: The vulnerability scoping diagram. Global Environmental Change 17(3-4): 472-485.
Keywords:vulnerability, climate extremes, urban

Sessions