This paper examines how exposure to both socio-economic and environmental
stressors and the interaction between the two affect the population of the
Northern coast of the São Paulo State, Brazil. It provides a useful way to
examine the multiple and overlapping processes of environmental and social-
economic change. Pathways to increased vulnerability are multidimensional, so
that socio-economic conditions may mediate the impacts of environmental
change, but changing environmental conditions may also alter socio-economic
capacities to maintain particular livelihood strategies. By analysing the
region, this paper argues that the adaptive capacity is, in general, largely
determined by the socio-economic context and the social vulnerability. The
finding indicates that socio-economic change brought about in the last four
decades due to intense urbanisation, tourism exploitation and increasingly
economic activities have deepened social and environmental problems,
increasing the vulnerability of particular groups to climate variability and
change. The cross-scale nature of the problems and the cross-level
interactions of these processes pose significant challenges for governance
structures and institutions in place in the region that fail to address the
root causes of vulnerability and the consequences of a changing environment
and climate
