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Rethinking the relationships of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation from a disaster risk perspective

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Abstract

Vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation are three fundamentally inter-related concepts among such research communities as global environmental/climatic change, social–ecological and disaster risk science. However, their mutual relationships are still unclear so far particularly in the field of disaster risk reduction, which to some extent blocks the reasonable risk analysis and scientific decision making. This paper performed a brief overview on the basic definitions and evolution processes of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation, and tentatively categorized past diverse thoughts of their relationships into three modalities, such as, vulnerability preference, resilience preference, and overlapped relationships. From a “hit-damage-recovery-learning cycle” insight and based on an empirical case study, we put forward two conceptual frameworks to address the relationships of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation within the disaster risk domain, and we further discussed their broader implications in terms of disaster risk management and social–ecological sustainability. In an attempt to bring together the analytical frameworks of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation, this study indicates that a sustainable adaptation strategy to the unavoidable disasters or changes should not only seek to reduce the vulnerability of a social–ecological system, but also to foster its resilience and adaptive capacity to future uncertainties and potential risks.

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Acknowledgments

This study was jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.41171402; No.41201553) and the State Key Scientific Program of China (973 Project) (No.2012CB955403). Sincere thanks should be given to the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions that greatly helped to improve the quality of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, No. 19, Xinjiekouwai Street, Haidian District, Beijing, 100875, China

    Yongdeng Lei & Jing’ai Wang

  2. Key Laboratory of Regional Geography, Beijing Normal University, No. 19, Xinjiekouwai Street, Haidian District, Beijing, China

    Yongdeng Lei, Jing’ai Wang, Yaojie Yue & Weixia Yin

  3. School of Geography, Beijing Normal University, No. 19, Xinjiekouwai Street, Haidian District, Beijing, China

    Yongdeng Lei, Jing’ai Wang, Yaojie Yue & Weixia Yin

  4. National Disaster Reduction Center of China (NDRCC), Beijing, 100022, China

    Hongjian Zhou

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  1. Yongdeng Lei
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Correspondence to Jing’ai Wang.

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Lei, Y., Wang, J., Yue, Y. et al. Rethinking the relationships of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation from a disaster risk perspective. Nat Hazards 70, 609–627 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-013-0831-7

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