Wellbeing Assessment for Climate Change

The processes of social development, which can be described as resulting in the transformation of social structures to improve the capacity of a society in order to fulfil its objectives (Jacobs & Asokan, 1999, p. 152), is increasingly linked in contemporary literature to concepts of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change. The concept of vulnerability is often discussed in relation to natural hazards and the ability of individuals or social groups to cope with these hazards (Adger & Vincent, 2005). On the other hand, although the study of adaptation of humans to environmental variability has its roots in anthropology (Janssen, Schoon, Kee & Bonner, 2006), in recent decades it has principally been applied to issue of global climatic change and its impacts (Adger, Arnell & Tompkins, 2005; IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001). Within the vulnerability and adaptation domain, adaptive capacity has been defined in several ways1. Adaptive capacity, along with exposure and sensitivity, is considered a determinant of vulnerability (Adger & Vincent, 2005). A region, community or a family is thus regarded as more vulnerable if its adaptive capacity is low; but having high adaptive capacity in itself does not render it immune from disturbance - the nature of the disturbance and its impact also matter (Bohensky, Stone-Jovicich, Larson & Marshall, 2010)