A new initiative on vulnerability, resilience and adaptation

IHDP Update issue 1, 2008

This short contribution is intended as a brief report on the 2005 meeting at Arizona State University on the theme “Vulnerability, Resilience and Adaptation”. The terms resilience, vulnerability, and adaptability can be, and commonly are, used at all spatial and temporal levels in a dynamic structure, whether societal, environmental, or socio-ecological. They may refer to capacities of the system as a whole, but also to those of any one (or more) of its components, even down to the level of the individual actor.