ghana climate change vulnerability and adaptation assessment

7. SOCIAL VULNERABILITY TOCLIMATE CHANGE IN GHANADEFINING AND ASSESSING SOCIAL VULNERABILITY TO CLIMATECHANGENew definitions of climate change vulnerability are constantly evolving (Kelly and Adger, 2000; O’Brien et al.,2004). In the context of climate change, definitions of vulnerability typically fall into two camps. The moretraditional definitions assess vulnerability from what Kelly and Adger (2000) deem “the end point of a sequence ofanalyses.” An end point analysis would determine the level of vulnerability by summarizing the net impact ofproblems associated with climate change. The second school considers vulnerability as “a starting point foranalyses… Here, vulnerability is considered a characteristic of social and ecological systems that is generated bymultiple factors and processes.” (O’Brien et al., 2004a). Kelly and Adger (2000) take this definition further,defining vulnerability “in terms of the ability or inability of individuals and social groupings to respond to, in thesense of cope with, recover from or adapt to, any external stress placed on their livelihoods and well being.”Critical to the starting-point definition of vulnerability is the understanding that it is dynamic and in a continuousstate of flux, as the biophysical and social processes that shape people’s ability to cope with external stress changeover time and across space (O’Brien et al., 2004a).For purposes of this assessment, we adopt a “starting point” definition of social vulnerability to climate change,adhering to the Kelly and Adger (2000) definition of social vulnerability. We treat vulnerability as a measurablecharacteristic present within a population, and influenced by multiple socioeconomic and biophysical factors. Ourassessment approach includes four main steps. First, we identified variables that contribute to social vulnerabilityto climate change, on the basis of the academic literature. Second, we selected socioeconomic indicators thatserved as proxies for evaluating these variables at the district level in Ghana. Third, we scaled the index valuesand combined them into an index to measure overall social vulnerability to climate change at the district level.Finally, using GIS we mapped the values generated by the index (high values correspond with high vulnerability)across districts. (Please see the methods section for a more detailed explanation of this process.) The scaled,mapped index values can be used to compare social vulnerability to climate change across districts in Ghana, andto facilitate analysis of social vulnerability in relation to ecological zone, climate, and natural resource vulnerabilityto climate change.Social vulnerability varies by spatial scale: among members of a household, between households in a community,from community to community, and between districts and administrative regions. Given the need to provide anationwide assessment, our objective was to characterize vulnerability at the smallest scale practicable usingexisting data sets. Thus, the purpose of this assessment is to help identify vulnerability “hot spots” within Ghanathat may deserve attention when making decisions about where and how to implement development interventions(such as improving food security) to help people and communities build their adaptive capacity and increase theirresilience to climate change and its impacts. These are places where more fine-scaled analysis is called for toreveal actual vulnerabilities and strategies to address them. It is important to note that vulnerability is a relativeterm. The districts ranking lower on our vulnerability scale are not necessarily invulnerable to climate change; andsome individuals, households, and communities within these less vulnerable districts may be as vulnerable toclimate change as those in the high vulnerability districts.118 GHANA CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY AND ADAPTATION ASSESSMENT