Abstract
This study addresses risk, vulnerability, and their implications for the adaptation of communities to the problems they face in the everyday life and to those derived from climate change. Based on the literature about risk, vulnerability and adaptation to disasters and on a case study conducted in the Northern coast of São Paulo - Brazil, we summarize the converging themes in the analysis of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change, which are divided in three components: (i) interdisciplinarity for studies about environment and society, requiring multiscale analysis, (ii) the integration of land use management instruments, and (iii) risk governance and communication. Based on the results of a risk perception survey (914 interviewees), we analyze vulnerability according to three interconnected axes (physical risk, social vulnerability and protagonism) by emphasizing the role played by the population in face of physical risk situations, as a way to guide integrated and participatory work efforts to encourage the engagement of the population to cope with and reduce the risks derived from historical and recurrent problems - such as poverty, social and spatial segregation - or with those that are about to come, such as climate changes.
Keywords
Vulnerability; Multiscale; Interdisciplinarity; Climate Change; Northern coast of São Paulo
