ABSTRACT
In Part I we introduced the notion of ‘vulnerability’ and its relations to a set of processes involving access to resources in the maintenance of livelihoods. In Chapter 4 (in Part II) we began to apply these concepts, and suggested that famine is seldom caused by extreme climatic conditions (such as drought) alone, and that a severe decline in food consumption which might be expected to result from a drought may either not occur at all, or may not be the prime cause of a disastrous famine. What is of prime importance is people’s vulnerability, brought about by long-term or sudden disruptions to their access to resources of all kinds, both material and non-material, and people’s ability to use them in the successful pursuit of a livelihood. In a similar way, biological hazards may be both a trigger to a disaster and exacerbate its consequences, or follow on from other socio-economic root causes and unsafe conditions, once the disaster process is under way.
