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Flood vulnerability is a complex concept involving the interactions between environment, social and economic dimensions. Indicator‐based vulnerability assessment is widely used in vulnerability studies to summarise complexity and multidimensionality issues to gauge the level of vulnerability. A set of 21 environmental and socio‐economic indicators is used to quantitatively assess the three factors of vulnerability, namely exposure, susceptibility and resilience to flood at the subnational level. The construction of the vulnerability index involved the selection of indicators, their normalisation, weightage and aggregation to a final index. In addition to the Flood Vulnerability Index, three sub‐indices namely Exposure Index, Susceptibility Index and Resilience Index were generated. Based on composite indicator approach, the vulnerability of the states in Malaysia was categorised from very low to very high. The source of vulnerability is due not only to the environmental exposure to flood hazard but also contributed by the internal status of the socio‐economic factors within the vulnerable systems.

Climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic are complex and have multifaceted effects on countries in an unpredictable and unprecedented manner. While both COVID-19 and the climate crisis share similarities, they also have some notable differences. Being both systemic in nature with knock-on and cascading effects that propagate due to high connectedness of countries, COVID-19, however, presents imminent and directly visible dangers, while the risks from climate change are gradual, cumulative and often distributed dangers. Climate change has more significant medium and long-term impacts which are likely to worsen over time. There is no vaccine for climate change compared to COVID-19. In addition, those most affected by extreme climatic conditions have usually contributed the least to the root causes of the crisis. This is in fact the case of island economies. The chapter thus investigates into the vulnerability and resilience of 38 Small Islands Developing States (SIDs) to both shocks. Adopting a comprehensive conceptual framework and data on various indices from the literature and global databases, we assess the COVID-19 and climate change vulnerabilities of SIDs on multiple fronts. The results first reveal a higher vulnerability across all dimensions for the Pacific islands compared to the other islands in the sample. There is also evidence of a weak correlation between climate change risk and the COVID-19 pandemic confirming our premise that there are marked differences between these two shocks and their impacts on island communities.

Developing countries such as the Philippines depend greatly on their natural resources and ecosystem services. However, the capacity to sustain these services is currently being pressured by various environmental hazards, mainly brought about by climate change. Thus, it is imperative to assess the vulnerability of the environment so that effective ecosystem-based management strategy can be developed to improve the sustainability of these services. This chapter presents a geospatial-based method in assessing the vulnerability of watersheds in the country to various environmental hazards. This model is called the Geospatial-Based Regional Environmental Vulnerability Index for Ecosystems and Watersheds, or, in short, the GeoREVIEW model. GeoREVIEW is composed of 21 indicators and each indicator is evaluated using a scale of 1 to 5. A scale of 1 indicates low vulnerability while a scale of 5 signifies high vulnerability. Finally, to determine the vulnerability level of the area, its overall vulnerability point (OVP) is calculated. This model is utilized to evaluate the vulnerability of two significant ecosystems near Metro Manila – the La Mesa Watershed (LMW) and the Mt. Makiling Forest Reserve (MFR). Based on the assessment, it was found that both are already classified as “at risk” levels. However, MFR (OVP=55.24) is found to be less vulnerable than LMW (OVP=62.52). The results from this assessment can be used to improve the management of these areas and can also aid in targeting policy interventions associated with climate change.

The importance of the adverse impacts of network degradation has stimulated substantial international research interest in transport network reliability, that is, the ability of degraded transport networks to cope with travel demand. Most of the recent research effort has focused on the reliability of urban passenger transport networks, in terms of the probability that the network will deliver a required standard of performance. This situation is characterised by high levels of congestion, a dense road network, and quantifiable probability of degradation of the network. Outside major urban centres, the situation is very different. The main dominant consideration in transport network infrastructure provision is accessibility - linking urban centres, providing regional coverage, and basic levels of accessibility for the non-urban community and economy. The network is sparse, congestion is not a significant issue, and access to essential community services and to markets is the major driving force underlying network development. In this context, the vulnerability of the network is perhaps more important than ‘reliability’. This paper develops the concept of network vulnerability. It begins by reviewing the current state of research into network reliability, then proposes extensions and adaptations to the reliability concepts that are more appropriate for strategic-level multi-modal transport systems. Several alternative definitions for vulnerability are proposed. The paper also discusses the development of algorithmic and visualisation tools that may be used to identify specific ‘weak spots’ in a network, where failure of some part of the transport infrastructure would have the most serious effects on access to specific locations and on overall system performance. Finally, the paper describes potential applications of network vulnerability concepts, and proposes directions for further research.

Several developing economies witnessed a large number of systemic financial and currency crises since the 1980s that resulted in severe economic, social, and political problems. The devastating impact of the 1982 and 1994–1995 Mexican crises, the 1997–1998 Asian financial crisis, the 1998 Russian crisis, and the ongoing financial crisis of 2008–2009 suggests that maintaining financial sector stability through reduction in vulnerability is highly crucial. The world is now witnessing an unprecedented systemic financial crisis originated from the USA in September 2008 together with a deep worldwide economic recession, particularly in developed countries of Europe and North America. This calls for devising and using on a regular basis an appropriate and effective monitoring and policy formulation system for detecting and addressing vulnerabilities leading to crisis. This chapter proposes a macroprudential/financial soundness monitoring, analysis, and remedial policy formulation system that can be used by most developing countries with or without crisis experience as well as with limited data. It also discusses a process for identifying and compiling a set of leading macroprudential/financial soundness indicators. An empirical illustration using Philippines data is presented. There is an urgent need for increased coordination, collaboration, and partnership among central banks, banking and financial market supervision agencies, and ministries of finance, economic, and planning for proper macroprudential monitoring. A high-level national financial stability committee under the auspices of the head of the state as well as a ‘‘regional financial stability board’’ needs to be established to complement and support the activities of an “international stability board.”

This chapter focusses on food systems' vulnerability. In a rapidly and unpredictably changing world, vulnerability of farming and food systems becomes a key issue. The conceptual bases for food vulnerability analysis and food vulnerability assessment are discussed in a systemic perspective with an eye to the transition approach (Geels, 2004) as a perspective capable to analyze how novelties can develop and influence the system capability to fulfil societal functions, and food and nutrition security in particular. A framework for assessing people's food vulnerability is presented together with a simple vulnerability model based on the three dimensions of exposure (the degree to which a system is likely to experience environmental or sociopolitical stress), sensitivity (the degree to which a system is modified or affected by perturbations) and adaptive capacity (the ability to evolve in order to accommodate environmental hazards or change) (Adger, 2006). Then, other sections are dedicated to discuss the general questions that should be answered by a vulnerability assessment exercise, and the specific challenges emerging when the assessment concerns a food system. These elements are then used in the Annex to this chapter as a base for the development of a detailed method based on seven distinct steps for conducting participatory assessments of the vulnerability of food systems.

This chapter is set within global public sector reform processes, as policing is part of public service delivery. It explores the question of who is “vulnerable”, how vulnerability is assessed, and why? It considers the measurement of vulnerability, and how this influences policing practice and the role of the Police in contemporary policing.

The research is qualitative in nature and reliant on interview and documentary source data. It draws on concepts such as resilience, co-production, professionalisation and training as organising themes in which to make sense of how we reimagine the management of Vulnerability and the demands they place at the “core, the heart and the centre” of policing today.

Police management in the UK are attempting to stay true to the Peelian Principle of police efficiency alongside balancing the changing remit of what they have to contend with on a day-to-day basis – this is the paradox. Both Vulnerability and Risk are demonstrated to be increasingly interconnected alongside the developments of public health policing in the UK and elsewhere. Collectively, these concepts help to examine an increasingly complex landscape for the police to manoeuvre within, as they respond to a myriad of competing demands on services.

Vulnerability is the core, the heart and the centre of meaningful human experiences. With increasing pressures on resources, political scrutiny and changing roles and responsibilities, the police as an organisation (both in the UK and internationally) are increasingly responding to competing demands for their service. These demands are represented in this chapter as a paradox of change.

In this paper, I examine the concept of ‘vulnerability’ within the context of income mobility of the poor. While the concept of poverty is well developed, the concept of vulnerability is less established in the economic literature. I test for the dynamics of vulnerable households in the United Kingdom using Waves 1–12 of the British Household Panel Survey and find that, of three different types of risks for which I test, household-specific shocks and economy-wide aggregate shocks have the greatest impact on consumption, in comparison to shocks to the income stream. I find vulnerable households up to at least 10 percentile points above the poverty line. Savings and earnings from a second job are not significantly associated with smoothing consumption of all vulnerable households. The results strongly indicate that income transfers and benefits assist the vulnerable in smoothing consumption. Thus, traditional poverty alleviating policies are not likely to assist the vulnerable.

Pakistan is one of the most climate change and natural disaster-affected countries in the globe, where the lives and livelihoods of people are repeatedly affected due to these natural disasters. Over the past few decades, the country has been impacted by numerous devastating floods, droughts, and storms. As a result, households face enormous complications, particularly those dwelling in disaster-prone areas. Therefore, this study intends to explore the status of household vulnerability and resilience practices of hazard-prone communities in Pakistan from existing literature. This study has identified the 17 most relevant documents. It argues that household vulnerability is increasing consistently with the increasing rate of disaster intensity. Frequent flooding, landslide, erosion, and crop loss are the leading causes of household vulnerability. This study reveals five types of household vulnerability components which look into several livelihood vulnerability indicators of Pakistani households. Moreover, the study unfolds that the main causes of disaster vulnerability are widespread crop loss, a lack of water, loss of soil fertility, and low socioeconomic situations. The major vulnerability components of dwellers are exposure (increasing summer duration, the rapid increase of population house build-up in the riparian areas, and increasing occurrence of hailstorms), sensitivity, low access to education facilities, human loss, diseases infestation, food insecurity, and social conflict), and less adaptive capacity (social networks, migration, poor emergency services, multiple income sources, and less access to the health facility). To address the household vulnerability, this study has also identified four key aspects of resilience, like social resilience, economic resilience, institutional resilience, and physical resilience. The findings will effectively help to understand the dynamics of household vulnerability and resilience and its measurement and management strategy from developed indicators.

Following the disasters of 9/11/01 the U.S. government has embarked on what is intended to be a comprehensive response to the hazard of further terrorist attacks on Americans at home and abroad. This paper addresses the homeland component of the response and asserts that both the general approach and the measures being deployed are neither comprehensive nor well-balanced. The broad goal of security is losing ground to the narrower objective of defense; mitigation strategies are being overshadowed by preparedness and response alternatives; expert systems are preferred over grass-roots bottom-up ones; and possibilities for reducing human vulnerability are being ignored in favor of programs that aim to reduce risks or lessen the vulnerability of built structures and infrastructures. Preferences for the use of sophisticated technologies that are intended to quarantine terrorism and minimize its consequences far outnumber efforts to engage with the messier realm of ideas and behaviors related to terrorism. Yet it is the latter that shape the public interpretation of terrorism risks, structure patterns of exposure and affect the coping capabilities of threatened communities. Without substantial changes to policy that take account of these deficiencies, Americans are likely to find themselves little better prepared to confront the challenges of future terrorist attacks on targets in U.S. territory and the nation’s ability to address other kinds of hazards may be seriously compromised.