A changing world: coping with environmental, social and economic risks / Un mundo en transformación: afrontando riesgos ambientales, sociales y económicos

Abstract

‘At a time when disaster potential is on the increase, the coping mechanisms of many societies appear to have become less effective. In parallel with a rise in hazard potential, vulnerability has increased […]. Given these recent challenges, the world is in urgent need of organizing a concerted effort to deal with systemic risks’ (Renn, 2008, p. 62). Today’s complex and systemic nature of risks has increasingly dissipated the traditional boundaries between risk assessment, risk perception and social coping mechanisms (Renn, 2008). Individuals and societies are now faced with multiple risks in their everyday lives, that although being different in nature — environmental, social, economic, … — may demand integrated individual and social responses to cope with them. In accordance, changes in one dimension (e.g., environmental) may determine changes in other dimensions (e.g., social, economic) and associated risks can emerge. However, the effect of these changes goes beyond a simple additive effect of each of them. Given that changes occur in a system, a risk that emerges in one dimension may pose a threat or a challenge to the entire system and may interact with processes that may take place at other dimensions, motivating responses in the form of individual and social coping.