Porównaj metody

	Climate Vulnerability Index	Adaptive Capacity Assessment
Dziedzina	Environmental Sociology	Environmental Sociology
Rodzina	MCDM	Process / pipeline
Rok powstania	2003	2006
Twórca	Susan L. Cutter (social vulnerability); IPCC framing via Smit & Wandel	Barry Smit & Johanna Wandel; IPCC (Adger et al.)
Typ	Composite index aggregating exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity	Participatory, determinants-based assessment of the capacity to adapt
Źródło pierwotne	Cutter, S. L., Boruff, B. J., & Shirley, W. L. (2003). Social Vulnerability to Environmental Hazards. Social Science Quarterly, 84(2), 242-261.	Smit, B., & Wandel, J. (2006). Adaptation, Adaptive Capacity and Vulnerability. Global Environmental Change, 16(3), 282-292.
Inne nazwy	Composite Climate Vulnerability Index, Climate Risk and Vulnerability Index, IPCC Vulnerability Composite, Social Vulnerability to Climate Index	Adaptive Capacity Appraisal, Capacity-to-Adapt Assessment, Vulnerability-Based Adaptation Assessment, Determinants of Adaptive Capacity Analysis
Pokrewne	4	4
Podsumowanie	A climate vulnerability index is a composite indicator that combines measures of exposure to climate hazards, sensitivity to those hazards, and adaptive capacity into a single comparable score for places or populations. The conceptual backbone is the IPCC framing, articulated clearly by Smit and Wandel, in which vulnerability rises with exposure and sensitivity and falls with the capacity to adapt. The measurement machinery owes much to Susan Cutter's Social Vulnerability Index, which showed how to select, normalize, and statistically reduce many socioeconomic variables into a defensible index of who is most at risk. A climate vulnerability index merges these traditions: it assembles biophysical exposure indicators with social sensitivity and adaptive-capacity indicators, puts them on a common scale, and aggregates them. The output ranks counties, communities, or households so that scarce adaptation resources can be targeted. Because it is a composite, every step, indicator choice, normalization, weighting, embeds judgments that must be made transparent.	Adaptive capacity assessment evaluates the ability of a community, sector, or system to adjust to climate variability and change, to moderate harm, and to seize opportunities. It is the third and most actionable component of the IPCC vulnerability framework, the part that captures why two equally exposed and sensitive places can fare very differently. Barry Smit and Johanna Wandel's influential synthesis reframed vulnerability assessment around adaptive capacity and argued for a bottom-up, practitioner-oriented approach grounded in local knowledge of real exposures and coping. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report chapter on adaptation, by Adger and colleagues, catalogued the determinants of adaptive capacity, economic resources, technology, information, infrastructure, institutions, and equity, and the barriers that limit it in practice. Rather than producing a single index number, the assessment builds a rich, context-specific picture of what enables and constrains adaptation. Its purpose is to identify concrete entry points for strengthening the capacity to cope with a changing climate.