Gendered Experiences of Adaptation to Drought: Patterns of Change in El Sauce, Nicaragua

The changes men and women in a rural community in Nicaragua say they have implemented over the past decades differ in ways that relate to their vulnerability to drought. Short-term coping was more common among the women, especially the female heads of households, while adaptive actions were more common among the men. The Community Capitals Framework offers a tool to understand the differences. A gendered culture meant that the division of other types of capital (natural, human, social, financial, built, cultural, and political) as well as the division of labor in the case study area were also highly gendered. These gendered inequalities in access to and control over different forms of capital has led to a gender-differentiated capacity to respond to climate change, men being able to adapt and women experiencing a downward spiral in capacity and increasing vulnerability to drought. Resumen Los cambios que hombres y mujeres en una comunidad rural en Nicaragua dicen que implementaron en las últimas décadas difieren en aspectos relacionados con su vulnerabilidad a sequía. Medidas para hacer frente en el corto plazo fueron más comunes entre las mujeres, mientras medidas de adaptación fueron más comunes entre los hombres. El Marco de Capitales de la Comunidad es una herramienta útil para entender esas diferencias. La persistencia de una fuerte cultura patriarcal implica una división desigual del trabajo y de acceso a y control de capitales marcadas por el género. Estas desigualdades generaron una capacidad diferenciada por género para responder al cambio climático, resultando en hombres siendo capaces de adaptarse y mujeres experimentando una espiral descendente en la capacidad y un aumento de vulnerabilidad a sequía

Women’s vulnerability to climate-related risks to household water security in Centre-East, Burkina Faso

Variable climate conditions, resulting in periods of water scarcity and longer dry spells, or intense rainfall events, have serious implications for water and sanitation services. Climate change threatens to exacerbate these hazards, increasing risks to household water security, and associated impacts on health, wellbeing and livelihoods. These risks are not evenly distributed across individuals and communities, and there is a particular need to understand women’s vulnerabilities and responses to these risks due to disproportionate impacts of poor water and sanitation conditions. This study used mixed-methods data collection to assess how vulnerabilities to climate-related risks to household water security are produced and vary among women in the Centre-East region, Burkina Faso, as well as capacities to respond. Gendered water-related roles and norms were found to drive vulnerabilities for women in the case study site particularly related to increasingly inadequate water availability during the dry season. Other social differences such as Mossi and Peul ethnicity which influence ways of using water, also contributed to women’s differential vulnerability and capacities to respond. These findings show there is a need to consider how the development of ‘climate resilient’ water and sanitation services take social drivers of vulnerability into account

Vulnerability and vulnerable groups from an intersectionality perspective

In general, the identification and protection of vulnerable groups in the case of hazards or when a crisis unfolds is an issue that any crisis and disaster risk management should address, since people have different levels of exposure to hazards and crises. In this article, we promote the application of the intersectionality perspective in the study of vulnerable groups, and we call for intersectionality as a guiding principle in risk and crisis management, to provide a better and more nuanced picture of vulnerabilities and vulnerable groups. This can help national and local authorities and agencies to formulate specific guides, to hire staff with the skills necessary to meet particular needs, and to inform vulnerable groups in a particular way, taking into account the differences that may coexist within the same group. Intersectionality allows us to read vulnerability not as the characteristic of some socio-demographic groups. It is rather the result of different and interdependent societal stratification processes that result in multiple dimensions of marginalisation. In this vein, we argue that research should focus on 1) self-perceived vulnerability of individuals and an intersectionality approach to unpack vulnerable groups; 2) cases of crises according to the level and/or likelihood of individual exposure to hazards, to better nuance issues of vulnerability.publishedVersio

Culture and Capacity : Drought and Gender Differentiated Vulnerability of Rural Poor in Nicaragua, 1970-2010

This dissertation interprets gender-differentiated vulnerability to drought within a rural community located in the dry zone, la zona seca, of Nicaragua, a region that has been identified by the government and NGO sector as suffering from prolonged and, since the 1970s, more frequent droughts.  A combination of gender, capitals, and vulnerability demonstrates the value in using a multidimensional perspective to look at the socioeconomic and cultural contexts that form the capacity individuals have had to reduce their long-term vulnerability to drought in Nicaragua.  Due to the place-based characteristics of gender as well as vulnerability the analysis is mainly based on people’s stories about the history of their lives.  Based on these stories a local level picture is created of the households’ situation over time, how their work strategies and management of resources have varied, and how they perceived changes in capacity and vulnerability in relation to continuity and change in the climate.  The issue of adaptive capacity, which currently is less covered in research on gender and vulnerability and recognized in the literature as in need of more attention, and how it distinguishes itself from coping capacity in relation to vulnerability, is placed at the center of analysis.  In an additional analysis of how Nicaragua’s hazard management policies look upon the role and importance of interaction among societal levels and actors in reducing hazard vulnerability I show how the discourse has moved from emergency response to risk management with an increased emphasis on capacity building.  However, the recognition to differentiated vulnerability is lacking which risks hampering a successful vulnerability reduction.At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Accepted. Paper 3: Manuscript.</p

Cross-level institutional processes and vulnerability to natural hazards in Honduras

Hurricane Mitch struck Honduras in October 1998 with disastrous results. Lack of accessto adequate land, credit or technical assistance had forced subsistence farmers and semi-urbanpopulations into high-risk marginal areas. Deforestation and inappropriate farming practicesexacerbated their vulnerability. The losses experienced by the country ranged from lost lives,to lost livelihoods, to destroyed infrastructure. Our goal in this study was to identify those factors in Honduran society that needed to bechanged in order to reduce future vulnerability to natural hazards. During natural disasters,different groups experience distinct, widely ranging levels of harm, from minor economicdamage to widespread mortality. Disasters occur through the interaction between naturalevents and vulnerable social and ecological systems. Most vulnerability research suggeststhat we should stop dealing with disasters as if the natural hazard itself is the principal cause.Instead, the underlying root causes and dynamic influences on vulnerability need to beaddressed. For these reasons, we focused on the institutional (formal and informal) factorsaffecting vulnerability to natural hazards. In this context, we interpret institutions to be therules that shape the behaviour of organisations and individuals in a society. This approach hasallowed us to reach many insights regarding ways in which Honduras can reduce vulnerabilityby reforming cross-level institutional processes contributing to differential vulnerability tonatural hazards. The focus of our study was on the social vulnerability to Hurricane Mitch experienced bythree rural case study areas in Honduras. Our aim was to: 1. identify key factors contributingto and affecting this social vulnerability to Mitch; and 2. capture and evaluate the importanceof identified informal and formal key institutions and cross-level linkages influencing thosefactors. Methods included a literature review, close to 110 interviews within the localcommunities, focus groups, about 50 meetings and interviews at municipal and national levelsas well as representatives of international organisations, and non-governmental organisations,and two workshops with a total of about 40 representatives of varying organisations involvedin disaster management at different levels. We used a vulnerability framework that has beendeveloped in previous research at the Stockholm Environment Institute and Clark Universityin the U.S., highlighting the socioeconomic and environmental/ecological conditions, tostructure the analysis and assess the influences of the identified institutions and cross-levelinteractions on vulnerability to natural hazards

Control of Stereoselectivity in Heterogeneous Catalysis by Functionalization of Pt Nanoparticles with alpha-Amino Acids

The asymmetric hydrogenation of ß-keto esters over amino acid-functionalized Pt nanoparticles (NPs) was explored. The investigated catalysts are chemoselective and stereoselective due to specific ligand-reactant interactions between ligands and reactants. Based on structure-selectivity relationships, the previously for L-proline-functionalized Pt NPs suggested ligand-reactant interaction model could be validated, extended to other amino acid ligands, and further refined. Nonlinear effect analysis revealed that in most cases the stereoselectivity is determined mainly by a 1:1 ligand-reactant interaction. Adjusting the interactions between ligands and reactants allowed to improve the stereoselectivity up to an enantiomeric excess over 80%. Most amino acid ligands not only induce selectivity but also enhance the reaction rate. The results of a systematic kinetic study provided an important contribution to the understanding of the reaction mechanism