Eco-restructuring: Implications for sustainable development (UNU, 1998, 417 pages): Part I: Restructuring resource use: 2. The biophysical basis of eco-restructuring: An overview of current relations between human economic activities and the global system: Climatic change and vulnerability

Eco-restructuring: Implications for sustainable development (UNU, 1998, 417 pages)

Part I: Restructuring resource use

2. The biophysical basis of eco-restructuring: An overview of current relations between human economic activities and the global system

		(introductory text...)
		Introduction
		The earth system
		The climate system and climatic change
		Climatic change and vulnerability
		Biological diversity
		Fresh water
		Soils
		The solid earth (lithosphere)
		Land-cover and land-use changes
		Human impacts and industrial metabolism
		The case of West Africa
		Outlook

Climatic change and vulnerability

The concept of vulnerability is central to any research into climatic change. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has defined the objective of its climate programme as "determining the characteristics of human societies at different levels of development which make them either specially vulnerable or specially resilient to climatic variability and change." Vulnerability can be seen as "the degree to which a system may react adversely to the occurrence of a hazardous event" (Timmerman 1981). This concept has often been used in relation to climatic and global change research (Kates et al. 1985; Liverman 1991), being linked to terms such as resilience, marginality, susceptibility, adaptability, fragility, and criticality.

In the tropics especially, a wide-ranging integrative approach encompassing all aspects of vulnerability is needed. This includes biophysical monitoring, modeling, and studies on the transformation of the physical environment. In this respect, only an improved understanding of the socio-economic, cultural, and demographic factors will provide the necessary insight into the situation of social groups at risk. In the regional case-study on Africa, below, further reference is made to this.