ABSTRACT
Global processes such as climate change and trade liberalization present great challenges to both science and policy because of the unequal distribution of benefits and costs among countries, among sectors, among communities and among people. Governments develop and implement regional and local policies that can help to balance the negative impacts of these processes and reduce the vulnerability of affected areas and communities. However, emerging patterns of vulnerability are not the consequences of policies alone, but are also a manifestation of human adaptive behaviour to the impacts of these policies. Human beings possess cognitive abilities to exhaust or economize social, economic and natural resources to adapt to any changes in the environment. Understanding vulnerability requires knowledge of adaptation processes, and the reduction of vulnerability demands appropriate adaptation measures. While policy should be able to provide measures to help local communities adapt in a sustainable manner, science has the challenging task of informing policy about the sustainability of these measures. Building an effective science/policy interface is thus a prerequisite for reducing the vulnerability of communities to the impacts of global processes. In this discussion, vulnerability and adaptation are understood as an outcome of both institutional and social links and decision processes between science and policy, on the one hand, and among people in affected communities, on the other.
