Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Part I
- Part II
- Part III
- Part IV
- 8 Assessing local vulnerabilities: methodological approaches and regional contexts
- 9 Rapid Vulnerability Assessments of exposures, sensitivities, and adaptive capacities of the HERO study sites
- 10 Evaluating vulnerability assessments of the HERO study sites
- Part V
- Part VI
- Index
- References
10 - Evaluating vulnerability assessments of the HERO study sites
from Part IV
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Part I
- Part II
- Part III
- Part IV
- 8 Assessing local vulnerabilities: methodological approaches and regional contexts
- 9 Rapid Vulnerability Assessments of exposures, sensitivities, and adaptive capacities of the HERO study sites
- 10 Evaluating vulnerability assessments of the HERO study sites
- Part V
- Part VI
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
As described in preceding chapters, one of the overarching HERO research activities was to establish a set of methodological protocols for vulnerability assessments. Within the methodological research plan were two principal activities, as introduced in Chapter 8: the development and testing of a Rapid Vulnerability Assessment methodology, and the development and testing of an Vulnerability Assessment Evaluation methodology, designed to validate, or assess the accuracy, of our work. Chapter 9 summarized our efforts on the former task; this chapter presents the results of the latter task. Accordingly, at the end of this chapter, we will be in a position to posit some synthetic conclusions about vulnerability in and across the four HERO sites.
Accuracy assessments are difficult to conduct in many research domains, but they are particularly challenging in the domain of vulnerability because the multidimensional nature of this concept makes it difficult for an individual researcher to observe and measure the principal variable of interest. The multi-site context, where the number of places and researchers is larger, amplifies this challenge. Clearly, then, conducting vulnerability research in a networked environment will present particular challenges to validating the research. In this light, a methodology for validating – or what we term evaluating – our research findings is needed.
Methods and data
There are two datasets involved in the application of our Vulnerability Assessment Evaluation methodology: the reference dataset and the validation dataset.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Sustainable Communities on a Sustainable PlanetThe Human-Environment Regional Observatory Project, pp. 209 - 228Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009