Reg Environ Change

DOI 10.1007/s10113-016-1043-y

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

How do we assess vulnerability to climate change in India?

A systematic review of literature
Chandni Singh1 • Tanvi Deshpande1 • Ritwika Basu1

Received: 10 November 2015 / Accepted: 17 August 2016

 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016

Abstract In countries like India where multiple risks examples of it being integrated in methodology. Such
interact with socio-economic differences to create and methodological myopia potentially overlooks how social
sustain vulnerability, assessing the vulnerability of people, differentiation, ecological shifts, and institutional dynamics
places, and systems to climate change is a critical tool to construct and perpetuate vulnerability. Finally, we syn-
prioritise adaptation. In India, several vulnerability thesise the strengths and weaknesses of current vulnera-
assessment tools have been designed spanning multiple bility assessment methods in India and identify a
disciplines, by multiple actors, and at multiple scales. predominance of research in rural landscapes with a rela-
However, their conceptual, methodological, and disci- tively lower coverage in urban and peri-urban settlements,
plinary underpinnings, and resulting implications on who is which are key interfaces of transitions.
identified as vulnerable, have not been interrogated.
Addressing this gap, we systematically review peer-re- Keywords Climate change
Vulnerability assessment

viewed publications (n = 78) and grey literature (n = 42) Systematic literature review
India
to characterise how vulnerability to climate change is
assessed in India. We frame our enquiry against four
questions: (1) How is vulnerability conceptualised (vul- Introduction
nerability of whom/what, vulnerability to what), (2) who
assesses vulnerability, (3) how is vulnerability assessed Vulnerability assessments (VAs) have emerged as an
(methodology, scale), and (4) what are the implications of important tool to identify structural weaknesses which
methodology on outcomes of the assessment. Our findings make a system vulnerable (Tonmoy et al. 2014), explore
emphasise that methods to assess vulnerability to climate the capacity of people and systems to adapt (Ford and Smit
change are embedded in the disciplinary traditions, 2004), and inform prioritising adaptation funding and
methodological approaches, and often-unstated motiva- implementation (Füssel 2007). Recognising the importance
tions of those designing the assessment. Further, while of VAs in informing climate change adaptation, there has
most assessments acknowledge the importance of scalar been a rise in studies that assess, quantify, and identify
and temporal aspects of vulnerability, we find few vulnerability ‘hotspots’ (De Souza et al. 2015), vulnerable
nations (Brooks et al. 2005), populations (Brenkert and
Malone 2005), and communities (GIZ 2014) and explore
Editor: James Pittock. drivers of this vulnerability (Hallegatte and Corfee-Morlot
2011; Mustafa et al. 2011).
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this
article (doi:10.1007/s10113-016-1043-y) contains supplementary Given that India is developing rapidly and is projected
material, which is available to authorized users. to face climate change impacts (MoEF 2008), VAs have
been carried out at various scales, by various actors and
& Chandni Singh
towards various goals. For example, government-funded
[email protected]
agricultural universities have studied crop vulnerability to
1
Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bangalore, India climate change using modelling and impact assessment

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 C. Singh et al.

methods (Srivastava et al. 2010; Soora et al. 2013), while indicator-based assessments (e.g. Vincent 2004; Barnett
non-governmental agencies (NGOs) predominantly use et al. 2008), participatory VAs (e.g. Howe et al. 2013),
VAs to identify vulnerable populations/households and and spatial mapping of vulnerable areas (e.g. Karmakar
target adaptation interventions (Watershed Organisation 2010).
Trust 2013; GIZ 2014). However, there has been limited Methodologies to assess vulnerability are shaped by
interrogation on whether the methodology used in these how vulnerability is conceptualised, the purpose of the
VAs has evolved with evolving definitions of vulnerability. assessment, and the spatial, temporal, and decision scales
In this paper, we conduct a systematic review of liter- of analysis (Eakin and Luers 2006; Füssel 2007; Joakim
ature to identify the span of methodologies used to assess et al. 2015). It is argued that certain conceptualisations of
climate change vulnerability in India and locate gaps vulnerability predispose them to certain methodological
between conceptualisation and assessment of vulnerability. approaches. For example, studies conceptualising vulner-
We begin with a short review of how the concept of vul- ability as exposure to hazards, which draws from a tech-
nerability has evolved in global research and within India. nocratic understanding of hazards, use methods that view
Using examples of VAs in India, we demonstrate that the people as passive actors impacted by hazards external to
methodologies to assess vulnerability have not seen a them (Cannon 2008). Such methodological predisposition
similar evolution, with critical implications for adaptation potentially overlooks the role that social differentiation,
planning and fund allocation. Although we focus on institutional processes, and economic dynamics play in
methodologies used to assess vulnerability to climate constructing and perpetuating vulnerability.1
change, we acknowledge that vulnerability is shaped by
multiple factors that are not necessarily climatic and thus
draw on a wide literature comprising disaster risk reduc- Methodology
tion, poverty, gender studies, rural development, and resi-
lience. The four key questions we focus on are (1) how is Systematic literature reviews
vulnerability conceptually framed, (2) who is assessing
vulnerability, (3) how is vulnerability assessed and what Systematic literature review (SLR) is a widely used
scale, and (4) what are the outcomes of these assessments? research methodology for identifying, assessing, and
interpreting the state of knowledge on a specific topic from
primary research (Kitchenham 2004; Dixon-Woods et al.
2006; Ford and Pearce 2010; Ford et al. 2011). SLRs
Conceptualising and operationalising vulnerability typically involve a process of reviewing literature using
rigorous and replicable steps (Ford et al. 2011; Delaney
While we focus on vulnerability to climate change in this et al. 2014).
paper, vulnerability is conceptualised and operationalised SLRs are considered more robust than standard litera-
differently by different research communities (Füssel and ture reviews because they are guided by clearly formulated
Klein 2006; O’Brien et al. 2007; Joakim et al. 2015). It has research questions and have well-defined inclusion and
been used in various disciplines (Adger 2006; Joakim et al. exclusion criteria that minimise opacity and allow repli-
2015) ranging from economics (entitlements theory, which cation (Ford et al. 2011). Given these strengths, SLRs have
addresses issues of food insecurity, welfare) and anthro- been increasingly being used in climate change research
pology (human ecology research which focusses on vul- (see Supplementary Material for a review). To make sense
nerable groups) to development studies (livelihood of the spectrum of vulnerability research which draws from
vulnerability in agriculture), psychology (perceptions of multiple disciplines, each with their own set of conceptu-
risk), and hazards research. From this disciplinary diver- alisations and methodological approaches, we chose the
sity, five main conceptual lineages of vulnerability can be SLR because it is well suited to ‘help clarify and stabilize
delineated (Fig. 1). different conceptualizations of ‘vulnerability’ and identify
Recent research has also contributed to the conceptu- methodological differences that are not otherwise apparent’
alisation of vulnerability by seeing it as an inherent con- (Delaney et al. 2014: 12).
dition and starting point of adaptation research (Joakim
et al. 2015), highlighting how vulnerability is relational
(Taylor 2014; Turner 2016) and temporally dynamic (Nair
1
2013; Singh 2014). Just as vulnerability research draws We acknowledge that the literature around risk has evolved
from various disciplines, it also benefits from a range of substantially from a hazard-based, techno-centric focus to an
approach that understands risks as intricately linked to physical,
methodological approaches. These include qualitative social, economic and institutional vulnerability and inclusive of
case study-based methods (e.g. Tonmoy et al. 2014), endogenous risk.

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How do we assess vulnerability to climate change in India? A systematic review of literature

Fig. 1 Conceptualising vulnerability by different traditions. Source Adapted from Adger (2006), Füssel (2007), Eakin and Luers (2006), and
Ribot (2009)

Data selection and review process was also obtained from previously reviewed papers and
their bibliography, government and NGO websites, and
We conducted a SLR through five steps: (1) identification expert consultation.
of literature, (2) consolidation of papers using inclusion The preliminary keyword search identified 382 docu-
and exclusion criteria, (3) creation of a database under ments. Of these, overlapping results (same papers identified
relevant heads, (4) coding of papers to identify conceptual by different searches) were removed resulting in 155
and methodological facets of VAs, and (5) data analysis. papers. Of these, 144 were selected as suitable based on
Peer-reviewed articles and grey literature published inclusion and exclusion criteria. Papers were included if
from January 2005 to January 2015 in English were they were published between January 2005 and January
reviewed. This period was considered representative 2015, focussed on India, and were relevant to vulnerability
because of the surge in vulnerability research post the 2001 research either conceptually or methodologically. Papers
IPCC report. Year 2005 was chosen as a benchmark with unclear methodology were not included. Wherever
because most literature on climate change adaptation dates there was ambiguity, articles were read fully to ensure their
back to 2006, and information prior to 2006 is summarised relevance. Of the final list, 24 journal articles were not
in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (Berrang-Ford accessible due to paywall restrictions and we trimmed the
et al. 2011; Bizikova et al. 2014). While this argument is final list to 120 publications (see Supplementary Material
weakened by the publication of IPCC’s Fifth Assessment for complete list of references).
Report, we felt that using the 2005 benchmark will allow a
sufficient sample size to draw conclusions. Grey literature Analysis
included NGO reports, unpublished working papers, pub-
lished theses, and working papers, and conference A database of reviewed papers (henceforth used synony-
proceedings. mously with VAs) was created in MS Excel. A coding
We reviewed literature across different scales and protocol was developed to code information evenly and
landscapes, and vulnerability to various stressors. Key- transparently and to extract data in a standardised format.
words were identified based on expert elicitation and lit- To capture the breadth of conceptual frameworks used,
erature (see Supplementary Material). Four search engines VAs were coded into seven categories (See Supplementary
(Web of Science, JSTOR, Science Direct, and Google Material). This categorisation draws from a similar exer-
Scholar) were used to extract relevant literature. Literature cise by Delaney et al. (2014), but goes beyond their

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framing to include more constructs2 of vulnerability. These vulnerability and adaptation research and DRR studies in
constructs emerged from an iterative process of coding the context of climate change. Despite care taken to include
which went back and forth between papers reviewed and search words from different disciplines, few VAs drew
key literature on vulnerability (Adger 2006; Birkmann and their conceptual framework from poverty (7 %), sustain-
Wisner 2006; Füssel 2007; Miller et al. 2010; Mustafa et al. able livelihoods (7 %), social protection (4 %), political
2011; Tonmoy et al. 2014; Joakim et al. 2015). The anal- economy (3 %), and feminist studies (1 %) as their core
ysis was constrained because several VAs did not explicitly discipline.
report constructs of vulnerability. Wherever there was no As illustrated earlier, globally, vulnerability to climate
explicit definition or conceptualisation of vulnerability, this change has been conceptualised through a range of dis-
was coded as ‘unclear/not explicit’, which in itself is an courses (Fig. 1). However, vulnerability assessments in
important finding. As Delaney et al. (2014: 15) note, such India remain rooted in certain disciplines such as hazards
VAs do not help in replicating research because it is ‘im- management, disasters, and risks and these theoretical
possible for us to draw conclusions with respect to either leanings find precedence over disciplines such as poverty
the validity or utility of articles that had shallow reporting’. and development, livelihoods, agriculture and gender
To analyse methodological frameworks, we coded papers studies, each of which have a rich body of evidence,
based on reported methods. especially around socially differentiated vulnerability. This
disciplinary dominance is reflected in later results
(Sect. 4.3.1) on the dominance of certain methodologies to
Results assess vulnerability over others.

A total of 120 VAs were examined. These were typically in Conceptualisation of vulnerability
coastal regions (Fig. 2). A majority of the VAs are spread
across peninsular India, with the highest number in Andhra Several studies (26 %) used the IPCC definition of vul-
Pradesh (n = 20). The northern and north-eastern states nerability seen as a composite of exposure, sensitivity, and
had lowest representation. The predominance of VAs in adaptive capacity (IPCC 2007). The IPCC’s latest defini-
coastal regions with significantly fewer in arid and semi- tions of vulnerability as elaborated in the AR5 (IPCC 2014)
arid regions indicates a skewed focus on areas that are were not included in any VA, probably because these
vulnerable to external hazards (sea-level rise in coastal definitions are more recent and are yet to percolate into the
regions) with lesser emphasis on understanding how dominant conceptualisation of vulnerability. Typical lags
structural drivers of vulnerability and endogenous risks between conceptual advancements and publication in peer-
interact with these external hazards (which are played out reviewed literature may be another reason for the AR5
in both coastal and semi-arid regions). definition not being used. In 30 papers (25 %), vulnera-
The following sections present findings around the four bility was not clearly defined which worryingly highlights
research questions this paper set out to answer: Sect. 4.1 how assessments may be conducted without clear defini-
covers how vulnerability is conceptually framed, Sect. 4.2 tions of what vulnerability is. In 22 % papers, vulnerability
answers who is assessing vulnerability, Sect. 4.3. discusses was conceptualised as inherent and as an exposure to a risk,
how vulnerability is assessed and what scales, and Sect. 4.4 which draws mainly from hazards and disaster risk
examines the outcomes of the assessment. reduction research. Vulnerability as ‘erosion of resilience’
or as ‘expected poverty’ was least reported (3 and 4 %,
How is vulnerability conceptually framed? respectively). This may be because we explicitly looked for
vulnerability studies and not resilience-related research.
Theoretical approaches and disciplinary backgrounds
Vulnerability to what?
Of the VAs, 27 % drew on vulnerability understood
through concepts of disaster risk reduction (DRR), expo- Most VAs (76 %) studied vulnerability shaped by climatic
sure to hazards, and risk of being affected by extreme risks. This was in part due to the focus of our study, but
events/stressors. Vulnerability to climate change (41 %) also because we classified vulnerabilities to disasters such
and a combination of climate change and DRR (25 %) as floods and drought under climatic risks. Only 19 %
emerged as dominant themes owing to a large sample of studies assessed vulnerability to both climatic and non-
studies focussing on climate change themes such as climatic risks. This highlights that few studies view vul-
nerability as contextual (O’Brien et al. 2007) and inherent
2
A construct or conceptual framework is defined as the way in which to a system (Joakim et al. 2015) and do not take a systems’
vulnerability was defined or explained by the author. approach which recognises how multiple stressors shape

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How do we assess vulnerability to climate change in India? A systematic review of literature

Fig. 2 Locations of
vulnerability assessments across
India. The map uses a graduated
scale to represent the number of
VAs in a state (lighter shades of
blue depict states with fewer
VAs). Of the 120 VAs
reviewed, 7 were at the regional
level [e.g. South India (1), semi-
arid tropics (2), coastal regions
(1), forest areas (1), Western
Ghats (1) and north-eastern
region (1)], 22 at a national
scale, and 1 at the international
have not been represented on
this map. Thus, the total number
of VAs mapped above is 90
(colour figure online)

vulnerability (O’Brien et al. 2004; Tschakert et al. 2013; Within researchers, 46 % VAs were by scientists (in-
Singh 2014). In particular, studies focussing on how gov- cluding climate scientists, agriculture researchers, and GIS
ernance and issues of power shape vulnerability were very specialists), 18 % by economists, and 30 % by other social
few (notable exceptions include Shah and Sajitha 2009; sciences (including disaster management, development
Khan and Kumar 2010; and Santha et al. 2015). experts). This highlights the concern that the dominance of
one disciplinary perspective potentially threatens to over-
Who assesses vulnerability? shadow other methodologies and ways of identifying who
is vulnerable.
Academic researchers (including non-university research- Of the total VAs reviewed, 65 % were peer-reviewed
ers) authored 80 % of the VAs. The involvement of donors literature, while 35 % were grey literature. However, these
and multilateral bodies, government agencies, and NGOs results may be skewed by the fact that practitioners often
was significantly lower (between 3 and 7 %), while 9 % do not publish their work because of their focus on
VAs were conducted by multiple actors collaboratively. implementation compared to researchers’ imperative on
The domination of academic actors in VAs may be because publishing and creating evidence and generating knowl-
of the purely academic epistemological beginnings of edge (Rynes et al. 2001). It has been argued that climate
vulnerability research (Jamison 2010) and policymakers’ change research and vulnerability assessments ‘rely pref-
preference of results from academics because they are erentially upon specialized, academic knowledge’ (Preston
considered neutral and led by expertise (Rietig 2011). et al. 2011:192). Also, VAs are often commissioned by
However, we cannot conclude that donors and NGOs did governments or donors with academic partners publishing
not conduct VAs. On the contrary, the results could be findings in peer-reviewed journals with civil society or
skewed because most VAs tended to be undertaken by government partners putting that research into use.
multi-stakeholder partnerships where there is a donor for The importance of grey literature in climate change
funding, an academic partner for designing the assessment, adaptation studies has been recognised, especially in the
and an NGO partner for facilitating and conducting the context of providing local information, policy responses,
assessment (for, e.g. Rajesh et al. 2014). The lower pres- and practice (e.g. autonomous adaptation) that often lie
ence of donors could be because donors often work through outside the ambit of journals (Pearce 2012). Often, the
NGOs and academicians. contestation of the ‘lack of credibility’ of grey sources

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 C. Singh et al.

disallows vital knowledge from finding adequate mention which is why 9 % of the VAs reported assessing vulnera-
in peer-reviewed journals, pushing researchers to partially bility at more than one scale.
draw from grey literature (Ford et al. 2011). Studies Amongst the literature reviewed, very few have used a
applying an SLR approach have acknowledged the temporal scale of analysis (exceptions are Chhotray and
importance of grey literature and adopted ways to sort and Few 2012; Pranjay 2012; and Singh 2014). The lack of
use select grey literature taking into account the constraints attention paid to temporal scales has implications on
posed by grey literature in scientific reviews (Ford et al. understanding vulnerability which is dynamic, especially in
2011; Lesnikowski et al. 2011). Since the AR5, the IPCC the context of seasonality and rural livelihoods (Singh
has also included grey literature in their reviews (Pearce 2014) as well as reporting differences in vulnerability to
2012). climate variability versus climate change (Nair 2013). VAs
that do discuss temporality demonstrate how vulnerability
How is vulnerability assessed? can have repercussions over decadal timescales (Chhotray
and Few 2012).
Methods used
Landscape focus of the VA
Of the 120 papers reviewed, 35 % used an indicator-based
methodology (Fig. 3b). The least reported methodology The landscape focus of most papers (41 %) spans across
used was participatory methods (1 %) followed by impact multiple landscapes (rural, urban, and peri-urban). This can
modelling studies (4 %) which mainly came from papers be attributed to the predominance of assessments at the
modelling crop vulnerability to future climate change district level, which may contain urban and rural areas. A
impacts. The analysis shows a continued dominance of the third of the VAs (34 %) were in rural landscapes, possibly
use of quantitative and indicator-based methods with lower because of dominant perceptions of rural areas housing the
use of qualitative methods (12 %). poor, agricultural livelihoods being most sensitive to climate
change impacts, and rural communities being socio-eco-
Spatial and temporal scales of assessment nomically disadvantaged and hence inherently vulnerable.
Moreover, multilateral agencies and NGOs have a larger
The district was the most commonly used unit to assess focus on rural areas (see for, e.g. SDC 2009; Practical
vulnerability (reported by 19 % VAs) followed by studies Action 2009; GIZ 2014). Only 2 % of the VAs mentioned
conducted at city (14 %), region (coastal, catchment, for- peri-urban areas possibly because the conceptualisation of
est) (13 %), and household (12 %) levels. Very few studies the peri-urban, especially in highly dynamic developing
(3 %) were at the individual scale, which showed that intra- country contexts, is still understudied.
household dynamics are understudied. Of the VAs, only
9 % assessed vulnerability at multiple scales. The popu-
Outcomes of vulnerability assessments
larity of district-level VAs is attributed to the district being
an intermediate unit that reflects dynamics at wider scales
A qualitative analysis of the findings, discussion, and
(national, state, landscape) as well as smaller scales (cities,
conclusion section of the VAs helped examine where the
villages, households) (e.g. in O’Brien et al. 2004). Another
VA exercise hoped to either further the conceptual under-
reason for the popularity of district-level assessments is
standing of vulnerability, methodological aspects of
that in the Indian context, there is availability of relevant
assessing vulnerability or inform policy or practice. We
biophysical and socio-economic data at district scale and it
identified five VA types (see below) and acknowledge that
is a unit relevant to development planning and disaster risk
these types are not mutually exclusive, and many studies
reduction plans.
identified drivers of vulnerability (category 1) as well as
Only 3 % of the studies were at the individual level.
made policy recommendations (category 4) based on their
This was because organisations disseminating information
findings. However, for this paper, we categorised the VAs
on climate change vulnerability function at larger and often
based on the key contribution the VA aimed to make, based
multiple scales, and there is a lack of data on the influence
on the authors’ stated objectives.
of individual indicators on vulnerability (Tonmoy et al.
2014), challenges of communicating concepts and goals of • Identifying structural drivers of vulnerability Of the
the study to individuals (Ranjan and Narain 2012), and the studies, 36 % VAs focussed on identifying the
difficulty of comparing contextual findings across indi- drivers of vulnerability. Most studies using disaster
viduals (Fekete et al. 2010). Being a dynamic concept that risk reduction as a primary disciplinary background
is not confined to a specific scale, vulnerability is shaped (for example, De Sherbinin et al. 2007; Dwarakish
by various forces and processes (O’Brien et al. 2004), et al. 2009; Chhotray and Few 2012) identified gaps

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How do we assess vulnerability to climate change in India? A systematic review of literature

Fig. 3 Conceptualisation of
vulnerability (a) and methods to
(a)
assess vulnerability (b) Not explicit/unclear definition

Vulnerability as exposure to risk

Livelihoods/assest-based vulnerability

Vulnerability as socially constructed

Vulnerability as impact

Vulnerability as expected poverty

Vulnerability as erosion of resilience

0 5 10 15 20 25
% of studies (n=120)

(b) Indicator-based

Quantitative

Mixed (index + qualitative case

studies)

Qualitative

Spatial analysis (GIS)

Impact modelling

Participatory

0 5 10 15 20
% of studies (n=120)

in the approach towards resilience building to climate vulnerability by developing categories of drought
change and focussed on the current drivers of vulnerability across time.
vulnerability. • Enabling/supporting decision-making Although most
• Identifying vulnerable people, places, sectors or sys- studies made policy recommendations, 15 % VAs
tems 25 % of the VAs focussed on categorising who is explicitly stated that their findings intended to enhance
vulnerable by mapping vulnerable regions or sectors. the effectiveness of adaptation planning (e.g. Downing
Other assessments explored how different social struc- et al. 2005; Das et al. 2014) or considered policy-
tures may result in differential vulnerability (e.g. caste- makers as their primary end users (e.g. Gaiha and Imai
driven vulnerability by Bosher et al. 2007 or gendered 2008).
vulnerability by Garikpati 2008). • Contributing to conceptual understanding of vulnera-
• Contributing to methodology Some studies (22 %) bility Only 3 % of the studies discussed the implications
furthered methodological practices to assess vulnera- of their findings on vulnerability conceptualisation. Such
bility. For example, Garg et al. (2007) develop a toolkit studies use other framings to understand vulnerability—
to assess vulnerability and adaptation across multiple for example, risk assessment framing by Sharma and
spatial and temporal scales. Studies using GIS such as Bharat (2009)—or use theory and empirical evidence to
Jain et al. (2009) also advance methods to assess revise existing frameworks (e.g. Singh et al. 2014).

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 C. Singh et al.

Discussion Fogelman 2013). Although there has been a global shift

towards more plural methodologies to assess vulnerability
This review highlights the importance of scale and (e.g. participatory methods by Fazey et al. 2010; case
methodological approach when assessing vulnerability. studies and analogues to understand temporal vulnerability
The findings demonstrate that in India, vulnerability is by Ford et al. 2010), this methodological progression is yet
conceptualised in multiple ways and draws from various to be mirrored in India (notable exceptions include Chho-
theoretical lineages. We argue that different conceptuali- tray and Few’s (2012) qualitative analysis of ongoing
sations of vulnerability are predisposed to certain vulnerability and response trajectories in post-disaster
methodological approaches and thus have significant Orissa; the use of life histories to explore temporal vul-
implications on who and what is rendered vulnerable. nerability of smallholders in Rajasthan by Singh (2014)).
Through a systematic literature review, we find that the While we acknowledge the importance of indicator-
methods used to assess vulnerability to climate change in based VAs in identifying differential vulnerability and
India are embedded in the disciplinary traditions and informing resource allocation, given the dynamic nature of
methodological approaches, of those conducting the vulnerability and its multi-scalar drivers, we recommend
assessment. The implications of this methodological con- supplementing such enquiries with methodologies that
servatism are that in India, innovations in vulnerability capture temporal aspects, explore how existing rules and
research (for example, the role of risk perception in shap- values shape differential vulnerability, unpack seemingly
ing adaptive capacity or how multi-scalar interactions homogenous categories of ‘high’, ‘medium’ and ‘low’
shape local vulnerability) have yet to percolate into vulnerability, and match conceptual advances in vulnera-
reported VAs. This in turn potentially portrays a myopic bility research.
view of the factors shaping vulnerability.
We also identify gaps in current vulnerability research in Scalar issues: spatiality and temporality
India. First, despite repeated calls for expanding VAs from in vulnerability research
indicator-based approaches to more relational, context-
based enquiries (O’Brien et al. 2007; Ford et al. 2010; Vulnerability varies with location and requires place-based
Taylor 2014) that see vulnerable people and places as analysis. Our analysis revealed that most VAs were district
embedded in multi-scalar complex systems (Adger et al. level with few studies assessing drivers and manifestations
2008; Eakin et al. 2009), 26 % of the VAs used the IPCC of vulnerability at multiple scales. This approach ignores
framework (IPCC 2007). Second, most studies assessed that vulnerability is not confined to a specific scale and is
vulnerability at one time, without attention to temporal influenced by various forces and processes (Fekete et al.
vulnerability and past trajectories of change. Finally, the 2010), necessitating holistic assessments that envision
review highlights continued reliance on indicators to assess vulnerable people and places as embedded in larger socio-
vulnerability, despite repeated critiques around choice and ecological systems (Singh 2014).
weighting of indicators (Vincent 2004; Hinkel 2011), lack In most VAs, vulnerability was assessed as a snapshot,3
of adequate data, the possibility of nonlinear relationships thus rendering an inherently dynamic concept static. Such
between determinants (Bhattacharya and Das 2007), and a static view of vulnerability tends to ignore that people
inability to capture vulnerability as experienced or per- are situated in highly dynamic systems. For example,
ceived by the vulnerable (Tschakert 2007; Ford et al. rural livelihoods and food security are a function of sea-
2010). The paper also provides the first comprehensive sonality (Singh 2014). Government terms (typically five-
review of VAs for India in recent years and uncovers the year periods) shape planning and resource allocation,
conceptual and methodological breadth of VAs over the which have direct repercussions on people’s coping and
past 10 years. adaptation behaviour. Most significantly, rapid urbanisa-
tion is poised to dissolve rural–urban binaries (Revi
Methodological approaches used 2008), thereby changing the very context within which
current VAs are done. Against this backdrop, the lack of
The predominance of indicator-based VAs raises questions VAs conceptualising and assessing vulnerability as
about the continued dependence on quantitative methods something changing over time is a significant research
for assessing vulnerability despite a growing call for con- gap.
textual and relational vulnerability (O’Brien et al. 2007;
Tschakert et al. 2013; Singh 2014; Taylor 2014), the need
to understand vulnerability not only as inherent, but as
accrued over time (Cutter and Finch 2008), and the lack of 3
Notable exceptions include Singh (2014), and Nair (2013), and to
evidence of the social roots of vulnerability (Bassett and some extent Ranjan and Narain (2012).

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How do we assess vulnerability to climate change in India? A systematic review of literature

Are findings from VAs informing research, policy, behind and implications of VAs, it must be followed by
or practice? interviews with people conducting and utilising VAs.

Dialogues around uptake of climate change VAs have

converged to identify a significant gap between mounting Conclusion
academic knowledge and translation of that knowledge into
effective evidence-backed policies (Preston et al. 2011). The challenge of understanding the drivers of vulnerability
While this may be due to hesitation of planners to hinge is closely linked to how vulnerability is assessed. Focuss-
development and adaptation investments on climate impact ing on India, this paper set out to review how is vulnera-
studies that have high levels of uncertainty, it may also be bility conceptualised and assessed, who is assessing
due to the lack of salience, credibility, and extent of vulnerability, and what contributions VAs set out to make.
localisation of certain assessments (Chaudhury et al. 2014). We find that despite advances in vulnerability research
Exceptions include VAs conducted by practitioners, which over the past few years towards interrogating structural and
are implicitly aimed at informing future local interventions. socially constructed drivers (Tschakert et al. 2013, Turner
Our review highlights that peer-reviewed papers 2016), most of the VAs reviewed were methodologically
(specifically those based on modelling future impacts) conservative. Thus, neither did they capture the nuances of
did not clearly mention targeted or potential end users who is vulnerable nor discuss how relatively passive dri-
(for, e.g. Chatterjee et al. 2014). This raises questions vers such as climate variability or natural resource degra-
around resources spent on doing VAs without a clear dation interface with highly political and contested factors
plan of uptake of such research into fund allocation or such as changing caste dynamics, rising inequality, or
vulnerability reduction. We note that the uptake and political will and fund allocation. Our findings are echoed
utility of findings from VAs findings and their role in in other recent reviews of vulnerability methods, but in
informing research, policy, or practice is an area of different contexts (for example, see Delaney et al. 2014,
further research. McDowell et al. 2016).
We suggest that just as the conceptualisation of vul-
Reflections on using a systematic literature review nerability globally has shifted from a static frame to
viewing it as a critical element shaping pathways of soci-
Systematic reviews have been criticised for being resource etal responses to climatic and non-climatic changes (Leach
intensive (Kitchenham 2004), over-relying on quantitative et al. 2010; Wise et al. 2014), the current methodological
analysis (Booth 2001; Dixon-Woods et al. 2006). In our toolbox in India needs to be concurrently expanded. This
study, although the SLR process was resource intensive, we expansion should be methodologically creative where
attended to other limitations by keeping our analytical current ways of assessment (e.g. indicator-based approa-
template flexible and coding iterative. Using a clear liter- ches) must be supplemented by methods drawing from
ature scanning and filtering strategy followed by a sys- other epistemic frames and disciplines (e.g. spatial map-
tematic analysis framework helped reduce time invested ping or ethnographic explorations in temporal vulnerabil-
(this review took 5 months to complete from start to first ity). Such a methodological expansion, which draws upon
draft stage). ongoing conceptual advances in vulnerability research, will
Searching for literature using search engines (Google lead to more holistic ways of assessing vulnerability and
Scholar, JSTOR) potentially led to a bias towards peer- thereby highlight relationships, temporalities, narratives,
reviewed material. This was addressed by supplementing and contexts of vulnerability. We also highlight that in
our search with consultations with experts and checking India, the context of rapid and often unplanned urbanisa-
websites of donors and NGOs to identify vulnerability tion (Revi 2008) necessitates an exploration of how exist-
projects. Another constraint of an SLR is how choice of ing and future vulnerabilities are perpetuated and created in
search words determines and limits the literature studied. In places of transition such as at peri-urban interfaces.
this paper, certain words were not explored which may
have excluded certain disciplines/vulnerability assess- Acknowledgments This work was carried out under the Collabora-
tive Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA),
ments. For example, ‘technological risk’ or ‘infrastructural
with financial support from the UK Government’s Department for
risk’ was not searched for and this potentially excluded International Development (DfID) and the International Development
studies on vulnerability of IT infrastructure, power, and Research Centre (IDRC), Canada. The views expressed in this work
road infrastructure to climate change. are those of the creators and do not necessarily represent those of
DfID and IDRC or its Board of Governors. The authors acknowledge
We conclude that while SLR is useful to make sense of
comments from Blane Harvey, Sumetee Pahwa Gajjar, Aromar Revi,
and categorise a wide literature, as in vulnerability research Garima Jain, and Amir Bazaz on an earlier draft of the paper. Thank
in India, for a more nuanced understanding of motivations you goes to Manish Gautam and Bhavana Rao for inputs on

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