Vulnerability and resilience in the context of natural hazards: a critical conceptual analysis

Climate change risk is becoming a big threat to humanity across the globe, as it disrupts the socio-ecological systems, thereby making communities more vulnerable. Consequently, researchers dealing with disaster risk and climate change have conceptualized vulnerability and resilience as essential ideas for environmental management. These ideas have now been used in various disciplines to present the system's risk and ability to cope and recover. Nevertheless, there is still a huge debate about the use of these concepts in the literature. Hence, this study intends to contribute to the debate by clarifying the concept of vulnerability and resilience in the context of natural hazards. To this end, a PRISMA approach-guided systematic review was undertaken to identify the pertinent documents to corroborate the argument. This study argues that the two notions of resilience and vulnerability are conceptually intertwined, but one is not the polar opposite of the other. Although communities and the social groups that make up those communities can be highly vulnerable, that does not mean that they are also vulnerable in other ways. Vulnerability focuses on how well systems' units (people, organizations, and societies) can deal with the consequences of stressors and is comprised of three major components, namely exposure, sensitivity, and adaptability. While the exposure and sensitivity components are positively related with vulnerability, adaptability exhibits a negative correlation with vulnerability. This study also argues that resilience is an ability of a socio-ecological system to bounce back to the preceding form after facing any shock, risk, and uncertainties by utilizing adaptive, absorptive, and transformative capacities. Adaptive capacity is the common component of vulnerability and resilience concepts, as low adaptive capacity places a system or unit in vulnerability, while high adaptive capacity promotes resilience. This study identifies several indicators and pillars recommended for a comprehensive understanding of vulnerability and resilience from various sources and analyzed them from different angles. The findings of this paper will be an important guideline for policymakers, practitioners, service providers, and environmental scientists.