Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

239 generally emit more; lower income groups emit the least[2]. This observation may imply a level of injustice, if it is the case that lower emitting groups are also more vulnerable to the climate impacts caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Fahmy et al. go on to use the database of household emissions to analyze the social impacts of mitigation policies, which in some cases have important negative implications for social justice (see also Speck 1999). Who is most vulnerable? Climate impacts will vary between climatic zones and local areas in the UK (HR Wallingford 2012). However, the harm, or opportunities, that will result from these changes in climate will also vary between social groups within and across different localities. Furthermore, different climate impacts will affect groups differently. The current evidence base on the social distribution of climate impacts and vulnerability is generally poor. Studies have looked at the relationship between impacts such as heat and mortality (e.g., Basu and Samet 2002, Mirabelli and Richardson 2005, Hajat et al. 2007), sometimes with a social analysis of the results. Literature from the U.S., drawing on the rich tradition of environmental justice research in that country, has analyzed the impact of extreme weather such as heat waves from a social perspective, for example to analyze the distribution of harm, again, usually mortality, across different ethnic groups (e.g., Klinenburg 2002, O’Neill et al. 2005, Morello-Frosch et al. 2009), as well as other social effects associated with heat waves, including stress, social disruption, violence, and increased crime levels (Simister and Cooper 2005). Recently, similarly social-based analyses of heat have begun to emerge in the UK (e.g., Brown and Walker 2008, Wolf et al. 2010). Following the environmental justice angle, in the UK, where flooding has been a more traditional impact, a small number of studies have looked explicitly at flood vulnerability and environmental inequalities (e.g., Tapsell et al. 2002, Fielding et al. 2005, Thrush et al. 2005, Walker et al. 2006) with a specific Environment Agency research programme focusing on the social aspects of flood management published in 2005 (EA 2005). This literature did not explicitly focus on flooding in the context of climate change or changes in future risk, however. More specific research on the social processes that drive vulnerability is not yet widespread. A Scotland and Northern Ireland Forum for Environmental Research (SNIFFER) report in 2009 gave an overview of many of the social issues that are relevant to climate change and identified gaps in research (CAG Consultants 2009). The JRF Climate Change and Social Justice program represents the first effort since this SNIFFER report to strategically improve the evidence base and communicate issues directly to policy makers and wider stakeholders. Below, three recent studies from the JRF program are reviewed, each looking at different but overlapping aspects of social vulnerability to climate change, namely: Zsamboky et al. (2011) on the impacts of climate change on disadvantaged coastal communities, Benzie et al. (2011) on vulnerability to heat waves and drought, and Lindley et al. (2011) on climate change, justice, and vulnerability. Table 1 provides an overview of the socially contextual factors that determine vulnerability to climate change, based on an interpretation by the author, drawing on these three projects. In it, I reinterpret the analysis in the original sources, which use slightly different framings to describe socially contextual factors to the ones summarized in this table. Coastal vulnerability Zsamboky et al. (2011) look at the impacts of climate change on disadvantaged coastal communities. They found a strong social dimension to the exposure of people to coastal flood risk, but also a number of links between deprivation and the ability of households and communities to respond to flood events and adapt to future threats. Coastal communities in the UK tend to be characterized by high levels of youth out-migration and a corresponding in-migration and concentration of older people, as well as transient groups, including tourists, who are identified as being most sensitive to climate impacts. Coastal communities are particularly vulnerable because of their high reliance on coastal infrastructure, ecosystems, and communications, which are especially susceptible to damage and disruption from climate impacts, namely sea-level rise, storm-related damage, coastal erosion, and flooding. A high economic reliance on seasonal employment related to tourism also heightens the sensitivity of coastal communities to extreme weather events and possibly long-term climate change, although climate change may present opportunities for tourism-related employment as well. Local health, social, and emergency services are also put under pressure during the tourism season, reducing the capacity of these services to support local populations in the event of extreme events such as heat waves or floods, and rendering tourists themselves at higher risk. The physical isolation of some coastal communities, particularly those on islands and remote coastlines, adds to their vulnerability, as do the generally old and poor-quality housing stock and below-average income levels associated with deprived coastal communities. Zsamboky et al. (2011) highlights the risk that certain coastal towns and villages become “blighted” by the perception of high risks from coastal change and therefore suffer from falling property values, lost job opportunities, and lower investment, and possibly even less flood defence protection from central government, leading to further social deterioration and increased vulnerability.