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Download a zip file that includes all the web pages and downloadable files from the student materialsFor the Instructor
These student materials complement the Coastal Processes, Hazards and Society Instructor Materials. If you would like your students to have access to the student materials, we suggest you either point them at the Student Version which omits the framing pages with information designed for faculty (and this box). Or you can download these pages in several formats that you can include in your course website or local Learning Managment System. Learn more about using, modifying, and sharing InTeGrate teaching materials.Adaptive Capacity Defined
What is adaptive capacity?
Adaptive capacity in vulnerability studies and hazard research means any action taken either to reduce or avoid risk or damage from hazard events, or to reduce or avoid people's or places' exposure and/or sensitivity to hazard events. While greater exposure and higher sensitivity to hazards increase the vulnerability of the people or the place, the adaptive capacity of the people or the place reduce their vulnerability to hazard events.
In academic research, there are several ways that scholars describe actions to reduce or avoid exposure or sensitivity, which include mitigation, adaptation, adjustment, reduction, and resilience. While those terms mean slightly different things than adaptive capacity means to vulnerability/hazards researchers, all of the terms consider the capacity to cope with, deal with, and adapt to hazard events.
The concept of adaptive capacity in vulnerability/disaster research is important because while the other two elements in vulnerability, exposure and sensitivity, describe the vulnerability of people or places in a negative way, adaptive capacity recognizes the ability of people or places to learn and change in terms of hazard events or their vulnerability and therefore shows the positive side in vulnerability.
