Perceptions of Local Vulnerability and the Relative Importance of Climate Change in Rural Ecuador
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Perceptions of Local Vulnerability and the Relative Importance of Climate Change in Rural Ecuador Helen Gutierrez 1 & Gwenyth O. Lee 2 James A. Trostle 5 & Rebecca Hardin 1
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Betty Corozo Angulo 4 & Jessica Dimka 3 & Joseph N.S. Eisenberg 2 &
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Rural, natural resource dependent communities are especially vulnerable to climate change, and their input is critical in developing solutions, but the study of risk perception within and among vulnerable communities remains underdeveloped. Our multidisciplinary research team used a mixed-methods approach to document, analyze, and conceptualize the interacting factors that shape vulnerability and to explore community members’ perceptions of the role and relative importance of climate change compared to other factors in three rural communities in Ecuador. Economic instability, lack of access to basic services, and environmental degradation are perceived as greater threats to community well being than increasing seasonal variability and flooding. Programs and policies directed at climate change adaptation should integrate climate and non-climate related stressors. Our findings also point to a greater need for collaboration across public health, poverty alleviation, and environmental management fields through practical research targeting assistance to vulnerable populations. Keywords Well being . Vulnerability . Riparian flooding . Marginality . Climate change . Climate adaptation . Esmeraldas . Ecuador
Introduction The impacts of global climate are felt differently among individuals and communities based on their geography and capacity to cope with or adapt to climatic stressors they experience (Adger and Kelly 1999; Frick-Trzebitzky et al. 2017). These capacities are in turn determined by underlying sociopolitical Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-020-00165-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Gwenyth O. Lee [email protected] 1
School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
2
Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
3
Work Research Institute, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway
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Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Técnica de Esmeraldas Luis Vargas Torres, Esmeraldas, Ecuador
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Department of Anthropology, Trinity College, Hartford, CT, USA
systems and historical power differentials. In broad terms, vulnerability to climate change, although defined differently across disciplines (Bohle et al. 1994; Brien et al. 2004; Kelly and Adger 2000; Wisner 2004), is produced at the intersection of geography, individual endowments, and institutional and structural capacities and priorities. As a result, it has been argued that solutions to climate change require interventions to address both specific climatic risks and generic structural deficits, such as lack of income, education, or poli
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