Abstract
The economic recession which followed the 2008 financial crisis has raised important issues on differences in the impact, especially from a spatial perspective, of the socio-economic shocks—at both the regional and the community level, especially in the European Union Member States. These differences may be due to the different levels of vulnerability, resilience and exposure, and may arise because of dissimilarities in the intrinsic characteristics of regions or communities (e.g. the pre-crisis economic characteristics of regions, ageing, household income, and so on). While, in the scientific literature, a great deal of attention has been paid to the concept of resilience (e.g. the capacity to bounce back or to resist a given shock) and vulnerability (e.g. the inherent characteristics that create the potential for harm), less attention has been paid to the full set of measures of socio-economic exposure (e.g. the things affected by a shock), as well as to both the relationship between vulnerability, resilience and exposure and the losses which ensue as a result of different external shocks and exposure.
The objective of this chapter is the exploration of the above-mentioned links, since a closer analysis of these complex interrelations might produce different outcomes. This study aims to review systematically the existing literature on vulnerability, resilience and exposure, in order to understand the connections between these concepts, with reference not only to economic shocks but also to other catastrophic events, such as natural disasters, man-made disasters, and so on.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Context includes features such as scale, as for example the micro (individual business), meso (sector or market) or macro (entire economy or system) levels.
- 2.
Inherent resilience pertains to resilience that is already ingrained in the system, while adaptive resilience pertains to improvisations in reaction to the shock. Rose (2007, 2017) emphasizes that resilience is actually a process, whereby resilience capacity can be enhanced prior to the shock (e.g., stockpiling critical materials, purchasing backup electricity generators lining up alternative suppliers, making the system more flexible in general), though most of the enhanced capacity is not applied until after the disaster strikes.
- 3.
This is often referred to as ‘robustness’.
- 4.
We note that ecologists overlap their definition of recovery sometimes with the concept of adapting; however, for explanatory reasons we prefer to separate the two concepts.
- 5.
We thank one of the editors for this noteworthy suggestion.
- 6.
This outcome arises because our identification strategy is based on reviewing primarily economics journals (see for instance, Kajitani and Tatano 2009 and Wein and Rose 2011). It should be noted that, in this phase of the analysis, we did not consider papers written by economists and social scientists in ‘hazards’ journals (see e.g. Rose 2017 and Rose et al. 2016).
References
Akter S, Mallick B (2013) The poverty–vulnerability–resilience nexus: evidence from Bangladesh. Ecol Econ 96:114–124
Berry PM, Rounsevell MDA, Harrison PA, Audsley E (2006) Assessing the vulnerability of agricultural land use and species to climate change and the role of policy in facilitating adaptation. Environ Sci Policy 9(2):189–204
Boschma R (2015) Towards an evolutionary perspective on regional resilience. Reg Stud 49(5):733–751
Brenkert AL, Malone EL (2005) Modeling vulnerability and resilience to climate change: a case study of India and Indian states. Clim Change 72(1):57–102
Briguglio L (1995) Small island developing states and their economic vulnerabilities. World Dev 23(9):1615–1632
Briguglio L, Cordina G, Farrugia N, Vella S (2009) Economic vulnerability and resilience: concepts and measurements. Oxford Dev Stud 37(3):229–247
Brooks N, Adger WN, Kelly PM (2005) The determinants of vulnerability and adaptive capacity at the national level and the implications for adaptation. Global Environ Change 15(2):151–163
Bruneau M, Chang S, Eguchi R, Lee G, O’Rourke T, Reinhorn A, Shinozuka M, Tierney K, Wallace WA, von Winterfeldti D (2003) A framework to quantitatively assess and enhance the seismic resilience of communities. Earthq Spectra 19:733–752
Capello R, Caragliu A, Fratesi U (2015) Spatial heterogeneity in the costs of the economic crisis in Europe: are cities sources of regional resilience? J Econ Geogr 15(5):951–972
Cardona OD (2005) Indicators of disaster risk and risk management: Program for Latin America and the Caribbean: Summary Report. Inter-American Development Bank
Cardona OD, van Aalst MK, Birkmann J, Fordham M, Mc Gregor G, Perez R, Pulwarty RS, Schipper ELF, Sinh BT (2012) Determinants of risk: exposure and vulnerability. In Field CB, Barros V, Stocker TF, Qin D, Dokken DJ, Ebi KL, Mastrandrea MD, Mach KJ, Plattner GK, Allen SK, Tignor M, Midgley PM (eds) Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation. A special report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp 65–108
Cellini R, Torrisi G (2014) Regional resilience in Italy: a very long-run analysis. Reg Stud 48(11):1779–1796
Chakraborty J, Tobin GA, Montz BE (2005) Population evacuation: assessing spatial variability in geophysical risk and social vulnerability to natural hazards. Nat Hazard Rev 6(1):23–33
Chan SL, Wey WM, Chang PH (2014) Establishing disaster resilience indicators for Tan-sui river basin in Taiwan. Soc Indic Res 115(1):387–418
Christopherson S, Michie J, Tyler P (2010) Regional resilience: theoretical and empirical perspectives. Camb J Regions Econ Soc 3:3–10
Colburn LL, Jepson M, Weng C, Seara T, Weiss J, Hare JA (2016) Indicators of climate change and social vulnerability in fishing dependent communities along the Eastern and Gulf Coasts of the United States. Mar Policy 74:323–333
Crescenzi R, Luca D, Milio S (2016) The geography of the economic crisis in Europe: national macroeconomic conditions, regional structural factors and short-term economic performance. Camb J Regions Econ Soc 9(1):13–32
Cuadrado-Roura JR, Maroto A (2016) Unbalanced regional resilience to the economic crisis in Spain: a tale of specialisation and productivity. Camb J Regions Econ Soc 9(1):153–178
Cutter SL (1996) Vulnerability to environmental hazards. Prog Hum Geogr 20(4):529–539
Cutter SL, Finch C (2008) Temporal and spatial changes in social vulnerability to natural hazards. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105(7):2301–2306
Cutter SL, Boruff BJ, Shirley WL (2003) Social vulnerability to environmental hazards. Soc Sci Q 84(2):242–261
Cutter SL, Barnes L, Berry M, Burton C, Evans E, Tate E, Webb J (2008) A place-based model for understanding community resilience to natural disasters. Global Environ Change 18:598–606
Cutter SL, Burton CG, Emrich CT (2010) Disaster resilience indicators for benchmarking baseline conditions. J Homel Secur Emerg Manag 7(1):Article 51
Di Caro P (2015) Recessions, recoveries and regional resilience: evidence on Italy. Camb J Regions Econ Soc 8(2):273–291
Ding Q, Chen X, Hilborn R, Chen Y (2017) Vulnerability to impacts of climate change on marine fisheries and food security. Mar Policy 83:55–61
Doran J, Fingleton B (2015) Resilience from the micro perspective. Camb J Regions Econ Soc 8(2):205–223
Duval R, Elmeskov J, Vogel L (2007) Structural policies and economic resilience to shocks. OECD Economics Department Working Papers No. 567
ECLAC (2003) Handbook for estimating the socio-economic and environmental effects of disasters, United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
Eraydin A (2016) Attributes and characteristics of regional resilience: defining and measuring the resilience of Turkish regions. Reg Stud 50(4):600–614
Estoque RC, Murayama Y (2014) Social–ecological status index: a preliminary study of its structural composition and application. Ecol Indic 43:183–194
Faggian A, Gemmiti R, Jaquet T, Santini I (2017) Regional economic resilience: the experience of the Italian local labor systems. Ann Reg Sci 58:1–18
Field EH, Seligson HA, Gupta N, Gupta V, Jordan TH, Campbell KW (2005) Loss estimates for a Puente Hills blind-thrust earthquake in Los Angeles, California. Earthq Spectra 21(2):329–338
Fingleton B, Garretsen H, Martin R (2012) Recessionary shocks and regional employment: evidence on the resilience of UK regions. J Reg Sci 52(1):109–133
Flanagan BE, Gregory EW, Hallisey EJ, Heitgerd JL, Lewis B (2011) A social vulnerability index for disaster management. J Homel Secur Emerg Manag 8(1):Article 3
Flatø M, Muttarak R, Pelser A (2017) Women, weather, and woes: the triangular dynamics of female-headed households, economic vulnerability, and climate variability in South Africa. World Dev 90:41–62
Foster KA (2007) Case study approach to understanding regional resilience. Working paper 2008–07. Institute of Urban and Regional Development, University of California, Berkeley
Fratesi U, Rodríguez-Pose A (2016) The crisis and regional employment in Europe: what role for sheltered economies? Camb J Region Econ Soc 9(1):33–57
Gallopín GC (2006) Linkages between vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity. Global Environ Change 16(3):293–303
Giannakis E, Bruggeman A (2015) Economic crisis and regional resilience: evidence from Greece. Papers Reg Sci. https://doi.org/10.1111/pirs.12206
Godschalk DR, Kaiser EJ, Berke PR (1998) Integrating hazard mitigation and local land use planning. In: Burby RJ (ed) Cooperating with nature: confronting natural hazards with land-use planning for sustainable communities. Joseph Henry Press, Washington, DC, pp 85–118
Graziano P (2013) Vulnerability and resilience of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of Italian provinces. Regional Studies Association, European conference
Haddad BM (2005) Ranking the adaptive capacity of nations to climate change when socio-political goals are explicit. Global Environ Change 15(2):165–176
Haimes Y (2009) On the definition of resilience in systems. Risk Anal 29(4):498–501
Hallegatte S (2014) Economic resilience: definition and measurement. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 6852. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2432352
Holling CS (1973) Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annu Rev Ecol Evol Syst 4:1–23
Hudson R (2010) Resilient regions in an uncertain world: wishful thinking or a practical reality? Camb J Region Econ Soc 3:11–25
Ibarraràn ME, Malone EL, Brenkert AL (2010) Climate change vulnerability and resilience: current status and trends for Mexico. Environ Dev Sustain 12(3):365–388
IDB (2011) Indicators for disaster risk and risk management – programme for Latin-America and The Caribbean. Belize. Technical notes no. IDB-TN-276
Islam MM, Sallu S, Hubacek K, Paavola J (2014) Vulnerability of fishery-based livelihoods to the impacts of climate variability and change: insights from coastal Bangladesh. Reg Environ Change 14(1):281–294
Jongman B, Kreibich H, Apel H, Barredo JI, Bates PD, Feyen L, Ward PJ (2012) Comparative flood damage model assessment: towards a European approach. Nat Hazard Earth Syst Sci 12(12):3733–3752
Kajitani Y, Tatano H (2009) Estimation of lifeline resilience factors based on empirical surveys of Japanese industries. Earthq Spectra 25(4):755–776
Koks EE, de Moel H, Aerts JC, Bouwer LM (2014) Effect of spatial adaptation measures on flood risk: study of coastal floods in Belgium. Reg Environ Change 14(1):413–425
Koks EE, Jongman B, Husby TG, Botzen WJW (2015) Combining hazard, exposure and social vulnerability to provide lessons for flood risk management. Environ Sci Policy 47:42–52
Kythreotis AP, Bristow GI (2017) The ‘resilience trap’: exploring the practical utility of resilience for climate change adaptation in UK city-regions. Reg Stud 51(10):1530–1541
Lagravinese R (2015) Economic crisis and rising gaps North–South: evidence from the Italian regions. Camb J Region Econ Soc 8(2):331–342
Lonergan S, Gustavson K, Carter B (2000) The index of human insecurity. AVISO (Ottawa, Ont) 6:1–7
MacKinnon D, Derickson KD (2013) From resilience to resourcefulness: a critique of resilience policy and activism. Prog Hum Geogr 37(2):253–270
Manuel-Navarrete D, Gomez JJ, Gallopín G (2007) Syndromes of sustainability of development for assessing the vulnerability of coupled human–environmental systems. The case of hydro meteorological disasters in Central America and the Caribbean. Global Environ Change 17(2):207–217
Marin G, Modica M (2017) Socio-economic exposure to natural disasters. Environ Impact Assess Rev 64:57–66
Martin RL (2012) Regional economic resilience, hysteresis and recessionary shocks. J Econ Geogr 12:1–32
Martin R, Sunley P (2015) Towards a developmental turn in evolutionary economic geography? Reg Stud 49(5):712–732
Martins VN, Silva DS, Cabral P (2012) Social vulnerability assessment to seismic risk using multicriteria analysis: the case study of Vila Franca do Campo (São Miguel Island, Azores, Portugal). Nat Hazard 62(2):385–404
Mayunga JS (2007) Understanding and applying the concept of community disaster resilience: a capital-based approach. Summer academy for social vulnerability and resilience building, pp 1–16
Meerow S, Newell JP (2015) Resilience and complexity: a bibliometric review and prospects for industrial ecology. J Ind Ecol 19(2):236–251
Meroni F, Pessina V, Squarcina T, Locati M, Modica M, Zoboli R (2016) The economic assessment of seismic damage: an example for the 2012 event in Northern Italy. In: CERU (ed) International conference on urban risk. CERU – European Centre on Urban Risks, Lisbon (Portugal), pp 323–330. ISBN:978-989-95094-1-2
Modica M (2014) Does the EU have homogeneous urban structure area? The role of agglomeration and the impact of shocks on urban structure. In: ERSA conference papers (no. ersa14p229). European Regional Science Association
Modica M, Reggiani A (2014) An alternative interpretation of regional resilience: evidence from Italy. In: ERSA conference papers (No. ersa14p369). European Regional Science Association
Modica M, Reggiani A (2015) Spatial economic resilience: overview and perspectives. Network Spatial Econ 15(2):211–233
Modica M, Zoboli R (2016) Vulnerability, resilience, hazard, risk, damage, and loss: a socio-ecological framework for natural disaster analysis. Web Ecol 16(1):59–62
Modica M, Reggiani A, Nijkamp P (2017a) Methodological advances in Gibrat’s and Zipf’s laws: a comparative empirical study on the evolution of urban systems. In: Shibusawa H, Sakurai K, Mizunoya T, Uchida S (eds) Socioeconomic environmental policies and evaluations in regional science. Springer, Singapore, pp 37–59
Modica M, Zoboli R, Pagliarino E (2017b) Mapping the environmental pressure due to economic factors. The case of Italian coastal municipalities. Argomenti (8), 73–105
Modica M, Reggiani A, De Vivo N, Nijkamp P (2018) Ageing and labour market development: testing Gibrat’s and Zipf’s Law for Germany. In: Modelling aging and migration effects on spatial labor markets. Springer, Cham, pp 285–309
Mustafa D (1998) Structural causes of vulnerability to flood hazard in Pakistan. Econ Geogr 74(3):289–305
Östh J, Reggiani A, Galiazzo G (2015) Spatial economic resilience and accessibility: a joint perspective. Comput Environ Urban Syst 49:148–159
Östh J, Reggiani A, Nijkamp P (2018) Resilience and accessibility of Swedish and Dutch municipalities. Transportation 45:1051–1073
Palaskas T, Psycharis Y, Rovolis A, Stoforos C (2015) The asymmetrical impact of the economic crisis on unemployment and welfare in Greek urban economies. J Econ Geogr 15(5):973–1007
Pelling M (2003) The vulnerability of cities: natural disasters and social resilience. Earthscan, Sterling, VA
Pimm SL (1984) The complexity and stability of ecosystems. Nature 307:321–326
Polsky C, Neff R, Yarnal B (2007) Building comparable global change vulnerability assessments: the vulnerability scoping diagram. Global Environ Change 17(3):472–485
Reggiani A, Hudec O, Siserova M (2016) Resilience capacity and vulnerability: the case of Slovakia. In: ERSA conference papers (No. ersa16p86). European Regional Science Association
Ribot JC (1995) The causal structure of vulnerability: its application to climate impact analysis. GeoJournal 35(2):119–122
Rose AZ (2007) Economic resilience to natural and man-made disasters: multidisciplinary origins and contextual dimensions. Environ Hazard 7:383–398
Rose AZ (2017) Benefit-cost analysis of economic resilience. In: Cutter S (ed) Oxford research encyclopedia of natural hazard science. Oxford, New York
Rose AZ, Krausmann E (2013) An economic framework for the development of a resilience index for business recovery. Int J Disast Risk Reduct 5:73–83
Rose AZ, Liao SY (2005) Modelling regional economic resilience to disasters: a computable general equilibrium analysis of water service disruptions. J Reg Sci 45:75–112
Rose A, Lim D (2002) Business interruption losses from natural hazards: conceptual and methodological issues in the case of the Northridge earthquake. Environ Hazard 4(1):1–14
Rose A, Oladosu G, Lia SY (2007) Business interruption impacts of a terrorist attack on the electric power system of Los Angeles: customer resilience to a total blackout. Risk Anal 27(3):513–531
Rose AZ, Sue Wing I, Wei D, Wein A (2016) Economic Impacts of a California Tsunami. Nat Hazard Rev 17(2):1–12
Sarewitz D, Pielke R, Keykhah M (2003) Vulnerability and risk: some thoughts from a political and policy perspective. Risk Anal 23(4):805–810
Sherrieb K, Norris FH, Galea S (2010) Measuring capacities for community resilience. Soc Indic Res 99(2):227–247
Somers S (2009) Measuring resilience potential: an adaptive strategy for organizational crisis planning. J Contingencies Crisis Manag 17(1):12–23
Sterlacchini S, Zazzeri M, Genovese E, Modica M, Zoboli R (2016) Flood damage in Italy: towards an assessment model of reconstruction costs. In: EGU General Assembly 2016, held 17–22 April 2016 in Vienna Austria, p 13135
UNDP (2015) Human development report 2015—work for human development. Published for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), New York
Van Der Veen A, Logtmeijer C (2005) Economic hotspots: visualizing vulnerability to flooding. Nat Hazard 36:65–80
Vincent K (2004) Creating an index of social vulnerability to climate change for Africa. Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research. Working Paper 56:1–41
Walker BH, Abel N, Anderies JM, Ryan P (2009) Resilience, adaptability, and transformability in the Goulburn-Broken Catchment, Australia. Ecol Soc 14(1):12
Wei YM, Fan Y, Lu C, Tsai HT (2004) The assessment of vulnerability to natural disasters in China by using the DEA method. Environ Impact Assess Rev 24(4):427–439
Wein A, Rose AZ (2011) Economic resilience lessons from the ShakeOut earthquake scenario. Earthq Spectra 27(2):559–573
Xiao J, Boschma R, Andersson M (2016) Industrial diversification in Europe. The differentiated role of relatedness. Papers in evolutionary economic geography no. 16.27. Utrecht University, Utrecht
Yohe G, Tol RS (2002) Indicators for social and economic coping capacity—moving toward a working definition of adaptive capacity. Global Environ Change 12(1):25–40
Young S, Balluz L, Malilay J (2004) Natural and technologic hazardous material releases during and after natural disasters: a review. Sci Total Environ 322(1):3–20
Yusuf AA, Francisco H (2010) Hotspots! Mapping climate change vulnerability in Southeast Asia. In: Economy and environment program for Southeast Asia. Available at http://www.idrc.ca/eepsea/
Zou LL, Wei YM (2009) Impact assessment using DEA of coastal hazards on social-economy in Southeast Asia. Nat Hazard 48(2):167–189
Acknowledgment
The authors wish to thank two anonymous referees, as well as the editors, for the valuable comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Appendices
Annex 1
Annex 2
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Modica, M., Reggiani, A., Nijkamp, P. (2019). Vulnerability, Resilience and Exposure: Methodological Aspects. In: Okuyama, Y., Rose, A. (eds) Advances in Spatial and Economic Modeling of Disaster Impacts. Advances in Spatial Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16237-5_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16237-5_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-16236-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-16237-5
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)