of the Verde Island Passage, Philippines - weADAPT

Methodology
Climate change vulnerability of a particular area was
defined as the amount of exposure and sensitivity less
the capacity of the community to adapt. Exposure
and sensitivity, defined below, are the recommended
vulnerability assessment indicators of climate change
impacts on human wellbeing.
Exposure
Exposure is defined as the types of valued assets that
are at risk of being impacted by changes in climate.
These assets include social assets (people, health,
education), economic assets (property, infrastructure,
and income), and ecological assets (natural resources
and ecological services) (USAID 2009). The profile of
foreshore areas would allow stakeholders to assess
exposure appropriately. For this component, assets
can be ranked in terms of their importance to local
stakeholders and to the local and/or national economy.
Sensitivity
Sensitivity refers to the degree of likely damage of
an asset if exposed to climate change. To assess the
sensitivity of coastal assets exposed to climate change,
the following questions may be considered (USAID
2009):
• How and to what degree were social, economic
and ecological assets affected by past climate
conditions and coastal hazard events
• What specific characteristics make groups or
systems sensitive
• Was everyone equally impacted If not, what were
the differences between various individuals and
groups
• What is the sensitivity of “non-exposed” assets
For example, agriculture activities that take place
away from the coast may rely on a highly exposed
and sensitive coastal road or port for export. Losing
this transportation asset could result in a loss in the
value of the agricultural assets.
Adaptive capacity
Adaptive capacity is the most critical of the three
dimensions because it shows a community’s ability to
manage and thereby reduce gross vulnerability. Hence,
vulnerability is increased when adaptive capacities are
minimal or not present.
Assessing the adaptive capacity of a place or sector
helps in understanding why vulnerability exists in the
first place. To reduce vulnerability, stakeholders must
understand its root causes. These are much deeper
societal issues than, for example, poorly constructed
houses being located in areas of coastal erosion. Root
chapter 2 • human well-being and climate change: methodology
causes might include poverty, insecure property rights,
natural resource dependency, degraded resources, and
weaknesses in institutions and political assets (Adger
1999). Adaptive capacity can be strengthened through
policies that enhance social and economic equity,
reduce poverty, improve natural resources and coastal
management, increase public participation, generate
useful and actionable information, and strengthen
institutions.
For heuristic purposes, because vulnerability
assessment methodology in the Philippine setting has
not yet been developed, the team selected the following
socioeconomic concerns in the Verde Island Passage
project, using interdisciplinary perspectives to guide
research methods:
• economic trends and livelihood sources (with focus
on fisheries, tourism and foreshore development);
• health and food safety.
The vulnerability assessment process started with 1)
knowing the climate change projection, 2) determination
of exposure and sensitivity of a given region or locale
to climate change, including the assessment of the
health of coastal habitats and ecosystems, and 3) an
assessment of adaptive capacity (capacity of society to
cope with the expected or actual climate changes).
Participative and inter-agency collaborative methods
were observed in the project. Iterative learning over
nine months depended on accessed agency reports,
roundtable discussions, interviews, focus groups
discussions and workshops across varied lines of
focus and expertise. Participative techniques engaged
local government units (LGU) from the provincial and
down to the municipal levels, stakeholders from coastal
communities and non-governmental organizations
in generating and systematizing information from
the ground, to be linked with insights of academics,
scientists and experts across disciplines in the physical,
biological and social sciences.
The research process demonstrated what variables
or data are to be accessed from agencies, generated
from rapid site assessments and through inter-agency
or multi-sectoral workshops to generate the baseline;
how to customize climate change-sensitive instruments;
what tools and measures can be creatively developed
to facilitate vulnerability assessment; and in what
aspects the help of support groups can be tapped
for science-based disciplinal expertise and technical
inputs.
49