Two methods to assess vulnerability to climate change in the Mexican agricultural sector Alejandro Monterroso, Cecilia Conde, Carlos

Gay, David Gmez & Jos Lpez

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change An International Journal Devoted to Scientific, Engineering, Socio-Economic and Policy Responses to Environmental Change ISSN 1381-2386 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change DOI 10.1007/s11027-012-9442-y

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Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change DOI 10.1007/s11027-012-9442-y ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Two methods to assess vulnerability to climate change in the Mexican agricultural sector
Alejandro Monterroso & Cecilia Conde & Carlos Gay & David Gmez & Jos Lpez

Received: 4 July 2012 / Accepted: 23 November 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012

Abstract We applied two methods to assess vulnerability to climate change in Mexicos agricultural sector. The first one was a principal component analysis (PCA) that weighted each variable separately. For the second one, we integrated the variables in a linear array in which all variables were weighted equally, and then, we used the arithmetic sum of the subindices of exposure and sensitivity minus the adaptive capacity to obtain the vulnerability index. We discuss the similarities and differences between two methods with respect to municipal-level maps as the outputs. The application of the method for the agricultural sector in Mexico gave us the spatial distribution of the high- and very-high vulnerability categories, which we propose as a tool for policy. The methods agreed that the very-high vulnerability category is present in 39 municipalities. Also we found that 16 % of the total population in the country is located in high-exposure areas. In addition, 41 % lives in municipalities identified as highly-sensitive. In terms of adaptive capacity, 20 % of the population lives in 1273 municipalities with low-adaptive capacity. Finally, we discuss the need for information regarding vulnerability at the national level to guide policies aimed at reducing exposure and sensitivity and increasing adaptive capacity. Keywords Agriculture . Adaptation . Exposure . Indicators . Mexico . Sensitivity . Vulnerability

A. Monterroso (*) : D. Gmez Departamento de Suelos, Universidad Autnoma Chapingo, km 38.5 carretera Mxico-Texcoco, Chapingo, Texcoco, Estado de Mxico CP. 56230, Mxico e-mail: aimrivas@correo.chapingo.mx C. Conde : C. Gay Centro de Ciencias de la Atmosfera, Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico, Av. Universidad No. 3000 Col. Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico C.U., CP. 04510 Delegacin Coyoacn, D.F., Mxico J. Lpez Instituto de Geografa, Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico, Av. Universidad No. 3000 Col. Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico C.U., CP. 04510 Delegacin Coyoacn, D.F., Mxico

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1 Introduction The aim of this study was to examine whether information at the municipal level can be used to assess vulnerability to climate change in a sector and/or country. OBrien et al. (2004) performed such an assessment at the sub-national scale, emphasizing multiple stressors. Brooks et al. (2005) proposed a method to apply these techniques with information at the national level. Recent studies have aimed to assess vulnerability based on socioeconomic or physical variables or on a combination of the two. If vulnerability is a function of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity (Adger et al. 2007), then studies are needed to establish how these variables function at different scales. Many countries make decisions on adaptation and vulnerability reduction at the municipal level, making this scale appropriate for exploration and analysis. In Mexico, for example, the municipality is the management unit in which federal financial resources are allotted and strategic decisions are made. Thus, understanding the factors that increase or reduce vulnerability at the municipal level is both of practical and theoretical interest. Several studies have revealed the theoretical and practical problems involved in the aggregation of variables in indices of vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Two of the greatest difficulties are the selection of variables and indicators and the determination of the weights that should be assigned to them to differentiate their correlation with vulnerability (Below et al. 2012; Hinkel 2011). Posey (2009) noted that the adaptive capacity of a municipality is defined mainly by socioeconomic characteristics. Weights can be assigned to the variables in two ways: a) all of the indicators of vulnerability are weighted equally, or b) a different weight is assigned to each variable. In the latter case, expert judgment (Kaly et al. 1999), principal component analysis (Easter 1999), correlation with past events (Brooks et al. 2005), fuzzy logic and multicriteria analysis (Eakin and Tapia 2008) can be used to determine appropriate values. Vulnerability and adaptive capacity are multidimensional, complex and no directly observed phenomena (Downing et al. 2001) making their evaluation difficult; however, studies have addressed this problem using different approaches. They have focused, for example, on the vulnerability to a particular stressor, such as rising sea levels (Nicholls 2002; Pelling 1999; Wu et al. 2002), drought (Fowler et al. 2003; Krol et al. 2001) and tropical storms (Connor and Hiroki 2005; Kelly and Adger 2000; Schreider et al. 2000), as well as on assessing the impacts of climate change (Barr et al. 2010; DARA 2010; DEFRA 2010; Fssel 2009; Harmeling 2011; Hinkel 2011; Young et al. 2011). In this traditional approach, the stressor and its corresponding impact are analyzed to examine the stressed system and its responsiveness (Luers et al. 2003; Ribot 1995). Vulnerability has also been assessed in terms of social vulnerability (Adger and Kelly 1999; Brooks et al. 2005; Cutter et al. 2009; Cutter et al. 2003; Dwyer et al. 2004; Guillaumont and Simonet 2011; Sullivan and Meigh 2005), institutional vulnerability (Aall and Norland 2005), vulnerability and governance (Davis et al. 2010) and vulnerability focused on adaptation (DEFRA 2010; Harley et al. 2008; Mitchell et al. 2010; Natural-England 2010; UNEP 2009). These studies are conducted on different scales with two main purposes: to report on options for mitigation and to quantitatively explore who is adapting, as well as how and why they are adapting (Below et al. 2012; Smit 2006). Locally, vulnerability has been applied to a sector of interest, such as agriculture (Antle et al. 2004; Eakin 2005; Hareau et al. 1999; Luers et al. 2003; Wheeler 2011). Evaluating climate change vulnerability, we believe it is required to assess the sector of interest and the potential impacts at the national level, first. The national level is suitable for generating and managing information, as it is used by governments to shape policy. After the national context has been analyzed, attention can be directed locally, mainly because the initial analysis

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identified the sub-national regions where the most vulnerable people are and the variables that drive their vulnerability. If the regions and socio-economic or environmental variables are identified first, they may serve as a starting point for understanding and addressing drivers of local vulnerability (Brooks et al. 2005; Moss et al. 2001; OBrien et al. 2004). The aim of the paper is to contribute to the study of integration methods and the assignment of weights to variables that determine vulnerability. Through the application and comparison of both a principal component analysis (PCA) and equal weighting, we discuss the similarity of the results and explore the relative importance of each method. The second objective was mapping vulnerability to climate change in a national and sectorial scale. We took the agricultural sector as a case study of an area expected to be among those most affected by climate change worldwide, but we believe it is possible to conduct such an analysis for every national industry. We believe this is useful to recognize the spatial distribution of vulnerability and thus help in policy design. Understanding the vulnerability of a sector and its spatial distribution will orient policies toward a geographic area or population group with urgent requirements (PNUD 2005). In our study, we selected social, economic and environmental determinants of agricultural production in Mexico and in general. The data are then used to assess vulnerability to climate change in the agricultural sector at the national level using municipal information. The scale demonstrates the potential for more detailed studies of drivers of vulnerability and adaptive capacity bottom up oriented.

2 Data and methods 2.1 Overview The aim of our study was to assess vulnerability to climate change using two commonly applied methods. For two decades, vulnerability has been conceptualized in different ways by different disciplines and has been used as a synonym of resilience, risk, marginality, adaptability and exposure (Liverman 1990). We follow the definition of vulnerability adopted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (Parry et al. 2007), which says that vulnerability is the degree of susceptibility or incapacity of a system to face the adverse effects of climate change, also including variability and extreme events. It is based on three dimensions: exposure of a system, its sensitivity and its adaptive capacity (IPCC 2007). To characterize national vulnerability to climate change, we select variables belonging to each of these three applied dimensions, for example, in the agriculture sector, and we describe them below. All variables and their abbreviations can be found in Table 1. Exposure is related to the climate stress of a particular unit of analysis (OBrien et al. 2004), the stressor and the direction and degree of change in the climatic variables. Exposure can be represented as changes in long-term climatic conditions or as changes in climatic variability, including changes in the magnitude and frequency of extreme events (Parry et al. 2007). Our variables are classified into three groups: extreme events, environmental issues and modeled future climate changes (Table 1). A total of 16 variables were used to assess exposure. Sensitivity refers to the degree of system response (in this case, due to climate change). It is also the degree to which a system is potentially modified by a disturbance; human and environmental conditions can ameliorate or worsen the impacts (Parry et al. 2007). The variables were categorized as population, health and agriculture (Table 1). The agriculture category is the sensing system; we evaluated the productive potential of land as a reflection of agricultural production capacity. We used a total of 23 variables to assess sensitivity to climate change.

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Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change Table 1 Names and abbreviations of variables Dimension Exposition: Extreme events E1 E2 E3 E4 Environmental Problems E5 E6 E7 E8 Climate E9 E10 E11 E12 E13 E14 Sensitivity: Population S1 S2 S3 Health S4 S5 S6 S7 Agriculture S8 S9 S10 S11 S12 S13 S14 S15 S16 S17 S18 S19 S20 S21 Adaptive Capacity: Human Capital C1 C2 C3 C4 Population aged 15 years and older who can read (%) School attendance by people from 6 to 24 years of age (%) Literacy rate at municipality Change in the municipalitys population from 20052030 (%) Female-headed households (%) Indigenous households in the municipality (%) Population in food poverty (%) Population in primary activities (%) Children under five years old who were small at birth (%) Children under 5 years old who were underweight at birth (%) Population without access to health services (%) Land area devoted to primary activities (%) PU without irrigation systems (%) Average yield of rainfed maize in 2005 (tn/ha) Likelihood of low yields in beans Likelihood of low yields in maize Agricultural suitability for maize, 19502000 Livestock potential, 19502000 Forestry potential, 19502000 Future agricultural aptitude Model MPI ECHAM5 to 2030 Future livestock potential Model MPI ECHAM5 to 2030 Future forestry potential Model MPI ECHAM5 to 2030 Future agricultural aptitude Model HadGEM1 to 2030 Future livestock potential Model HadGEM1 to 2030 Future forestry potential Model HadGEM1 to 2030 Total floods, 19852000 Total frost and hail, 19852000 Total heavy rains, 19852000 Total landslides, 19852000 Total of five problems (illegal logging, fires, pests, biodiversity loss and water pollution) Surface without vegetation (%) Production Units (PU)a with losses due to a climatic factor (%) PU with losses due to lack of soil fertility (%) Mean annual temperature (C), 19502000 Mean annual precipitation (mm), 19502000 Future temperature (C), Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model (HadGEM1), A2 by 2030 Future precipitation (mm), HadGEM1, A2 by 2030 Future temperature (C), MPI ECHAM5, A2 by 2030 Future precipitation (mm), MPI ECHAM5, A2 by 2030 Abbreviation Variable definition

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Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change Table 1 (continued) Dimension Social Capital Abbreviation C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 Financial Capital C11 C12 C13 C14 C15 C16 C17 Natural Capital C18 C19 C20
a

Variable definition PU organization to access some support (%) No litigation or disputes over land in PU (%) PU with technical training (%) Possession or land tenure (%) Civil protection unit Map of natural hazards PU without difficulty accessing credit (%) PU that receive remittances from abroad (%) PU reporting some type of savings (%) PU with credit and insurance coverage (%) Gross domestic product in 2000 ($) Population with income greater than two times the minimum wage (%) Estimated 2030 gross domestic product ($) Surface with forests and/or rainforests (ha) Reforested surface in the municipality (ha) Rate of water extraction from aquifers

The Production Units (PU) are defined in Mexico as areas with or without agricultural or forest activity, belonging to the same municipality and have been managed under one family or commercial administration by marchSeptember census of 2007. The National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) found 5 548 845 production units in 2455 municipalities

Adaptive capacity describes the ability of a system to adapt to changing conditions (OBrien et al. 2004). It is the ability of a system to change their circumstances to move to a less vulnerable condition (Luers et al. 2003) and to modify or anticipate the drivers of change. We considered 21 indicators in four categories: human capital, social capital, financial capital and natural capital (Table 1). Most of the data were taken from government agencies. In Mexico, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI Instituto Nacional de Estadstica y Geografa) is the federal agency responsible for the collection and processing of official information. We used their data on population and housing census (2006), as well as the agricultural, livestock and forestry census (2009). We also used data from the National Population Council (CONAPO Consejo Nacional de Poblacin, 2001, 2005, 2006 and 2008), the Ministry of Social Development (SEDESOL Secretara de Desarrollo Social, 2010) and the Ministry of Agriculture (SAGARPA Secretara de Agricultura, Ganadera y Pesca, 2009). Climate change scenarios included projections of temperature and precipitation for the HadGEM1 and MPI ECHAM5 models under A2 scenario by 2030 (Conde et al. 2011). We selected the models because were used in Mexico for the Third and Four national communications to the United Nations Framework for Climate Change. For more information about the scenarios please go to: www.atmosfera.unam.mx. 2.2 Methods All the variables were standardized to eliminate the different scales and make them comparable as follows: Z represents the standardized value of the variable v, Xi is the observed

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value of v, X is the mean value of the set of values i and SD is the standard deviation of the set of values i, as showed in formula 1. Zv Xi X=SD 1

We first evaluated the base vulnerability, which reflects the initial state of the system derived from the variables and historical information up to 2009. The base vulnerability was obtained by two methods: principal components analysis (PCA) and an arithmetic mean. In PCA, a different weight is assigned to each variable, whereas the arithmetic mean assigns an equal weight to each variable. According to the literature, there are three ways to assign weights to the variables: 1) through expert judgment (Brooks et al. 2005; Moss et al. 2001), 2) equal weighting (Lucas and Hilderink 2004; OBrien et al. 2004) and 3) statistical methods, such as PCA or factor analysis (Cutter et al. 2003; Thornton et al. 2006). We applied the last two methods to compare the outputs and test the final vulnerability scores at the municipal level. In this way, we were able to identify the regions that reflect the same vulnerability to climate change by both methods. One limitation in our method is we did not include expert judgment because at the municipal level such work is time-consuming and consensus is rare (Lowry et al. 1995). Also, we have to assume that the variables used were enough to capture the whole municipal behavior. PCA is a technique used to extract the linear combinations that best capture the information from a large group of variables. As suggested by Filmer and Pritchett (2001) and in Mexico CONAPO (2005), we took the first principal component that captured the most information. Thus, together with the mean value (m), standard deviation (s) and weight (fn) of each indicator (i), we obtained the final score of the first principal component extracted, i.e., the base vulnerability (BV): 2 BV f1 i1j m1 =s1 . . . fn iNj mN =sN The other method we used was allocation of the same weights to all variables. Prior to standardizing the exposure and sensitivity variables, the maximum value of each of the variables reflected the greatest stringency. In contrast, for adaptive capacity, the maximum value reflected the maximum potential for adaptation. All standardized exposure variables were integrated, and from an arithmetic sum of their values, we created the exposure sub-index. The same was performed for sensitivity and adaptive capacity variables for a total of three subindices. Finally, from the arithmetic sum of the two sub-indices of exposure and sensitivity, minus the adaptive capacity, we obtained the final value of the vulnerability by municipality: Vulnerability Index exposure sensitivity adaptive capacity 2.3 Mapping vulnerability Each municipality in the country was assigned the value obtained, and their distances were normalized to values between 0 and 100. I is the subscript of the variable P, Iobs is the value of the index for a given municipality, minimumI is the minimum value of all observed Ip values, and maximumI is the maximum value observed in the same set of Ip values. The value obtained was multiplied by 100: Ip IObs minimunI =maximumIE minimumIE 100 4 3

The final value range was divided into five categories according to a geometric distribution of their frequencies, and each group was assigned a qualitative indicator of vulnerability

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(Table 2). Thus, in our maps, the very high vulnerability class contains 20 % of the municipalities with the highest vulnerability, and the very low vulnerability class contains 20 % of the municipalities with the lowest vulnerability (OBrien et al. 2004). Using these values, we were able to compare the two methods of vulnerability assessment in the agricultural sector.

3 Results and discussion 3.1 Principal component analysis In the PCA, we extracted the first principal component, which represented only 16.5 % of the total variance (i.e., the input variables were not highly correlated). At the 17th principal component, however, accounted for more than 70 % of the variance (Table 3) due to the diversity of variables and range of observations. The rotation technique was Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. From the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy (commonly used in factor analysis), we obtained a value of 0.829 (p>0.05), which was acceptable. The Bartlett's test of sphericity was 0.012, which is acceptable because the associated probability is less than 0.05. The variables that contributed most to the first principal component were as follows: environmental problems, female-headed households, non-irrigated production units, low yield of maize and beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), future agricultural suitability by MPI ECHAM5 model and future agricultural and livestock suitability by HadGEM1 model, civil protection, hazard maps, production units with remittances from other countries and credit and insurance. All of these variables had a communality greater than 0.6. The remaining indicators had communalities of less than 0.6, so their contribution to the first component was not significant. Using factor analysis, we established weights for all variables. To derive a vulnerability index from PCA, we obtained the coefficients for each indicator and calculated the final score. The resulting coefficient matrix was bipolar, i.e., there were 35 variables with positive values (increased vulnerability) and 25 with negative values (lower vulnerability). The severity of the vulnerability was classified according with Table 2. Figure 1 (up) shows the spatial distribution of our results. The very-high-vulnerability category contained 39 municipalities (1.6 % of the national total), and the high-vulnerability category contained 279 (11.4 %). The low- and very-low-vulnerability categories contained 1141 (46.5 %) and 173 (7 %) municipalities, respectively. The high- and very-high-vulnerability categories contained 318 municipalities combined, or 13 % of the population. Furthermore, if we consider the total population in 2005, these municipalities contained 4.5 % of the inhabitants of the country (just over 4.3 million people). Over 79 million people (78 % of the total population) were classed in the low- and very-low-vulnerability categories. 3.2 Equal weighting First, we identified three sub-indices: exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Then, we integrated the sub-indices in a vulnerability index according with formula 3. We obtained

Table 2 Criteria used to mapping vulnerability classes at municipality scale Vulnerability Index: Vulnerability Class: 020 Very low 2140 Low 4160 Medium 6180 High 81100 Very High

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Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change Table 3 Total explained variance by principal component analysis Component Initial Eigenvalues Total 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 10.489 4.875 4.201 3.107 2.391 2.331 2.213 1.976 1.832 1.458 1.353 1.233 1.184 1.111 1.074 1.027 1.005 .978 .926 .897 % of variance 16.650 7.738 6.668 4.932 3.795 3.701 3.513 3.136 2.908 2.314 2.147 1.958 1.880 1.763 1.704 1.630 1.595 1.552 1.470 1.424 % accumulated 16.650 24.388 31.056 35.988 39.782 43.483 46.995 50.131 53.040 55.354 57.501 59.459 61.338 63.102 64.806 66.436 68.031 69.583 71.053 72.477 Extraction sums of squared loadings Total 7.414 3.901 3.461 3.189 3.004 2.553 2.514 2.333 2.162 2.104 1.978 1.559 1.482 1.455 1.370 1.259 1.122 % of variance 11.768 6.192 5.493 5.061 4.768 4.053 3.991 3.703 3.433 3.340 3.140 2.475 2.352 2.309 2.174 1.998 1.781 cumulative % 11.768 17.961 23.454 28.515 33.283 37.335 41.326 45.030 48.462 51.802 54.942 57.417 59.769 62.078 64.252 66.250 68.031

KMO measure of 0.829

positive correlations with exposure (0.73) and sensitivity (0.75) but for adaptive capacity the correlation was negative (0.73). Exposure and sensitivity are positively correlated with vulnerability; if one increases the same occurs to vulnerability. Adaptive capacity is negatively correlated with vulnerability (Fig. 2). The R2 values were 0.53, 0.55 and 0.53 for the exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity sub-indices, respectively. Increases in exposure and sensitivity, as mentioned above, tend to increase vulnerability. For example, extreme events, environmental issues or climate alone would be sufficient to increase the vulnerability of a municipality. Adaptive capacity should reduce vulnerability and explain why the correlations of variables are negative. Among the exposure variables, the climatic variables best explained the variance, with a correlation of 0.61. Extreme events (0.50) and environmental problems (0.49) explained less of the variance. Among the sensitivity variables, the demographic variables were most closely correlated with vulnerability (0.72), followed by health variables (0.59) and finally the agricultural variables (0.20). In adaptive capacity (vulnerability reduction), the human capital and financial capital correlations were almost the same (0.60 and 0.59, respectively), followed by the social group variables (-0.14) and finally natural capital (0.11) (Table 4). In Fig. 1 (down), we show the spatial distribution of vulnerability based on this method. We found that the very-high-vulnerability category contained 39 municipalities (1.6 %) and that the high-vulnerability category contained 405 municipalities (16.5 %). The low- and very-low-vulnerability categories contained 764 (31 %) and 8 (0.4 %) municipalities,

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Fig. 1 PCA Vulnerability (up) and equal weighting vulnerability (down) for the agricultural sector in Mexico

respectively. The high- and very-high-vulnerability categories included 444 municipalities (18.1 %) combined. In 2005, 12.5 % (just over 12.5 million) of the inhabitants of the country were in vulnerable areas. The low- and very-low-vulnerability categories contained 39 % of

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Fig. 2 Exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity contribution to vulnerability index

the population (more than 39.5 million people). Together, the remaining categories included more than 62.5 million people (61 %). The similarities and differences of two methods are described in next section. 3.3 Method comparison In Fig. 3, we present a graphical comparison of the vulnerability values for each municipality determined by both methods. By PCA and equal weighting, 1377 municipalities had similar values in all ranges (Table 2); that is, we obtained the same vulnerability values in 56 % of cases. The PCA returned 148 municipalities (6 %) with higher vulnerability and 930 (38 %) with lower vulnerability compared with the equal weighting results. Thus, PCA produce lower vulnerability values. Both methods are easy to apply. PCA is a statistics-based method that yielded lower vulnerability values. In PCA, all indicators are considered in a general analysis of exposure and sensitivity, which together increase vulnerability, while adaptive capacity reduces vulnerability. In our PCA evaluation, the results showed that 35 variables increase vulnerability (positive values) and 25 variables decrease it (negative values). In the equalweighting method, 39 indicators (16 of exposure and 23 of sensitivity) were shown to increase vulnerability, and 21 indicators (of adaptive capacity) reduce it.
Table 4 Correlation with vulnerability by variables group and estimated error Dimension Exposition Variables group Extreme events Environmental Problems Climate Sensitivity Exposition subindex Population Health Agriculture Sensitivity subindex Adaptive Capacity Human Capital Social Capital Financial Capital Natural Capital Adaptive Capacity subindex Correlation with Vulnerability 0.50 0.49 0.61 0.73 0.72 0.59 0.20 0.75 -0.60 -0.14 -0.59 -0.11 -0.73 Error 0.07 0.08 0.13 0.09 0.09 0.10 0.13 0.08 0.10 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.06

Bold numbers represents the 3 sub index values, once the previous groups were integrated

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Fig. 3 Vulnerability values obtained by two methods: each dot represents a municipality

Some variables (e.g., presence and frequency of extreme events) indicate higher vulnerability in a municipality. The greater the number of phenomena observed in one municipality, the more vulnerable it is. In PCA, certain variables (e.g., frost and landslides) yielded negative signs or decreased vulnerability. In another example, we found that the gross domestic product is weighted negatively. This behavior also explains why the PCA results are less significant. As PCA is a dimension-reduction method, it is not possible to differentiate the impact of the variables, nor is it possible to manipulate the variables that are believed to increase the adaptive capacity. In contrast, it is possible to preserve the sign of the variables when assigning them the same weight. The spatial distribution of vulnerability, however, suggested conclusions beyond those obtained from the methods, which are described below. We noted that the most significant difference emerged in the spatial distribution of the highand very-high-vulnerability categories (Fig. 1). For example, the two methods agreed that the very-high-vulnerability category contained 39 municipalities, but their spatial distributions were a little different. In the PCA, the most vulnerable municipalities were in the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, Puebla and Guerrero. However, the equal-weighting method detected them in Oaxaca, Chiapas, Puebla and Veracruz. The divergence emerges because extreme events are included differently in each method. The municipalities are very similar in all variables except in the number of extreme events observed. Veracruz, compared with Guerrero, has suffered more setbacks from extreme events. The high-vulnerability category included 279 municipalities, and the equal-weighting method included 405; the difference in 126 municipalities represented 5 % of the cases studied. Most regions are similar, except for some municipalities in the states of Baja California, Sonora and Nayarit. Thus, PCA may hide information that is relevant in assessing the vulnerability in a region, a municipality or even a country. The two methods agreed on the medium, low and very low vulnerability categories. Most of the studied regions are in the states of Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Durango, Jalisco, Michoacn, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Puebla, Hidalgo, Campeche, Yucatan, San Luis Potosi and Quintana Roo. We believe that the spatial distribution is important because if the policy objective is to reduce vulnerability, then the governments must first know where the vulnerable areas are.

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PCA will enable countries to make evaluations faster, with less correlation in their variables and lower magnitude in the vulnerability assessment. The equal-weighting method grants better insight into the contribution of each dimension in the overall vulnerability assessment. Furthermore, it is not possible to independently determine the contribution of each group to vulnerability by PCA. In our evaluation by sub-indices, it was possible to determine the contribution of exposure and sensitivity to the vulnerability of the municipalities. It is even possible to weight each, if desired. Adaptive capacity could also be characterized. Considering the objective of obtaining greater accuracy in planning adaptation measures from a vulnerability assessment, the equal-weighting method should be applied to expose the variables. We applied the method in the agricultural sector in Mexico, and our results are described below. 3.4 The agricultural sector in Mexico, how vulnerable is it? In this section we first describe the national context and then we focus in the group we identify as more vulnerable: the subsistence farmers. In the country there are approximately 30 million hectares of arable land, 115 million hectares of rangeland and 45.5 million hectares of forest and rainforest cover (SAGARPA 2007). The agricultural sector in 2009 accounted for 4 % of the gross domestic product. Agricultural activity is conducted mainly in rural areas, where the population is congregated in communities less than 2500 people and where 24 million Mexicans live, i.e., nearly a quarter of the population (CONAPO 2008). The people working in the agricultural sector accounted for 13.7 % of the population in 2005, and most grew crops for personal consumption and subsistence (INEGI 2010). These circumstances result in a wide range of production methods that have been grouped into three categories according to Gabriel (2003): subsistence or peasant agriculture, transition agriculture and commercial agriculture. In subsistence agriculture, the form of production is mainly rain-fed agriculture. The main crop is maize, with beans and pumpkin as supplements. The purpose of production is personal consumption; however, some municipalities may use part of the product for sale or for local exchange. This kind of agriculture is present in 32 % of municipalities (777). Transition agriculture consists largely of rain-fed agriculture, although it is possible to find areas with irrigation. The use of tractors or other machinery and chemical fertilizers, pesticides and improved seed is common. This type of agriculture occurs in 28 % of municipalities (702). In commercial agriculture, a high percentage of the land is irrigated. The use of specialized machinery, improved seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides is also high. Commercial agriculture is present in 40 % of municipalities (972). From here, we will refer just to the first type of agriculture in the following paragraphs. The agriculture is exposed to climate events. We found that extreme events that affect farming the most are droughts, floods, frost and hail, heavy rains and landslides. In the period between 1980 and 2000, there were more than 3000 floods, more than 750 frost or hail storms, over 600 heavy rains and over 450 landslides nationwide (CENAPRED 2010). Subsistence farmers were 15 % of all farmers affected. For each event reported in subsistence municipalities, four were reported in municipalities with commercial agriculture, principally due to improved access to information. Half of subsistence farmers in the period studied indicated losses due to climate issues. The simulations of temperature and precipitation under climate change scenarios indicate that municipalities with subsistence agriculture will experience increase from 1 to 2 C and will reduce 5 to 20 mm (10 %) in precipitation. The combination of changes in temperature and precipitation can lead to a more exposed agricultural sector. After integrating the variables, it is possible to develop

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more detailed profiles that may enable governments to target their policies. For example, we found that the total population in the country located in high-exposure areas (138 municipalities) is equal to 16 % of the national total (just under 16 million people). Agriculture type is one predictor of sensitivity. Among those who participate in transitional and subsistence agriculture, 42 % live in food poverty. The population engaged in primarysector activities is higher in the municipalities with subsistence and transitional farming (15 %) compared with those dominated by commercial agriculture (9 %). Population health services are provided at just 22 % in those municipalities dominated by subsistence agriculture. The municipal area devoted to primary activities in municipalities with subsistence farming is over 61 %. More than 90 % of the municipalities with subsistence farming lack irrigation infrastructure, compared with less than 63 % of municipalities with commercial agriculture. This inequity, among other considerations, affects crop yields; for corn (Zea mays), for example, commercial agriculture yields on average 2 tons per hectare compared 0.9 tons in subsistence agriculture. The sensitivity is also determined by the suitability of the land for farming, ranching or forestry. For Mexico-specific information, the reader can find more on this subject in Gomez et al. (2011); Monterroso et al. (2011a) and (b). Agriculture is the subsector that is most sensitive to future climate change, followed by forestry and livestock activities (without considering other important variables, such as water sources required). In another measure of sensitivity, the population in the poorest decile spends more than half (51.8 %) of their income on food, while in the richest decile, that proportion is only 22.7 % (INEGI 2008). According to data from the Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 2 % of Mexico's population lives on $1.25 a day, 4.8 % lives on $2 a day and 17.6 % is below the national poverty line for food. In addition, 3.4 % of children under 5 years of age suffer from malnutrition, and 5 % of the population is undernourished (PNUD 2009). In addition, 41 % of the total population (approximately 40 million people) lives in 1387 municipalities and were identified as highly sensitive. In Mexico, attention must be paid to the most sensitive population (40 million people), those living in areas with low adaptive capacity (20 million) and those who are more exposed (16 million). In most cases, these groups occupy the same 103 municipalities. For example, we found that 3 % of the national population identifies itself as having high exposure and low adaptive capacity. In addition, we found that 13 % of the population (850 municipalities) claims high sensitivity and low adaptive capacity. In terms of adaptive capacity, 20 % of the population (20.5 million in the country) lives in 1273 municipalities with low adaptive capacity. We believe these data are valuable for the creation of better government policies. By caring for the most vulnerable people, we can decrease sensitivity or increase the adaptive capacity in these regions. The target regions can be identified by their statistically supported characteristics. Finally, the country's agricultural system can reduce vulnerability with changes, which could include the following: improving the welfare of people to decrease the sensitivity and modifying the agricultural system's exposure to certain stressors such as drought, flooding or frost. Regarding the former point, 14 % of the population has high vulnerability and a low adaptive capacity. Regarding the latter point, efforts should aim to reduce 14 % of the total population with high vulnerability and high exposure to these phenomena, as well as 20 % of the population of the municipalities that have high sensitivity and vulnerability to climate change. The responsiveness of farmers to the impacts of climate change is determined, in principle, by their current adaptive capacity, but that capacity has limits that have already been demonstrated by the losses and damages associated with events such as droughts and floods, which cause economic and human losses. Therefore, the results of this study may enable the shift of adaptation efforts to areas with greater exposure, increased sensitivity or lower adaptive capacity.

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4 Conclusions We examine two methods for vulnerability assessment at municipal level. PCA can be implemented faster than linear integration. It is suitable for a rapid assessment of vulnerability when applied, for example, to a national sector. In our study, it proved to be a less rigorous method of vulnerability assessment compared with the equal-weighting method. In the second method, it is possible to integrate variables and obtain the proportional contribution of each dimension to vulnerability. Both of these methods begin with the prior selection of the variables of interest. Some limitations are that their use may be limited by subjectivity in the selection of indicators or variables, difficulty in validating the information and the fact that the final assessment does not reflect local knowledge. This approach should be incorporated in future studies that include local knowledge to assess the local differences that might differentiate activities that increase or reduce vulnerability. The information used was at the municipal level; from there, we built vulnerability maps and nationwide profiles. We believe that the scale used was appropriate to characterize exposure, sensitivity, adaptive capacity and vulnerability in the agriculture sector of Mexico. First, statistical and spatial information are available at the municipal level. Second, it was possible to characterize regions and obtain more detailed information; that is, the scale can build a bottom up view. Identifying the regions where it is likely that the vulnerability will increase is the first step in determining the locations and their limitations to adaptation. The first step is to look for adaptation. The next step is to study regional and local exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity at the community level, focusing on conditions that are important to the community, rather than those chosen by the government, by a researcher or even from the available information. In the agricultural sector analysis, we found that extreme events are too complex to be analyzed and incorporated into vulnerability assessments, as there are many interrelated factors in their manifestation and impact. We consider it is desirable to incorporate variables or indicators that allow the evaluation of the intensity of these phenomena. In addition, local knowledge of the phenomena and their impact on society should be considered. In the analysis of sensitivity, we believe that our study represents a first effort to integrate agricultural activity into a vulnerability assessment. We believe it is desirable to work with more specific information for each agricultural crop in the future and not to limit the work to proficiency-only studies, such as the present study. Assessing vulnerability to climate change in the agricultural sector is a complex task because the system is very complex, and although the methods employed in this study are an improvement, they still do not reflect the systems complexity; however, our purpose is to provide information on relative vulnerability in the agricultural sector of Mexico that might be applied in any other country and could support adaptation and even to direct resources and institutional efforts.
Acknowledgments Support for this research was provided by the Government of Mexico by CONACYT funding. We are grateful with Departamento de Suelos at the Universidad Autnoma Chapingo, Centro de Ciencias de la Atmosfera and Instituto de Geografa at the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico, where the research was conducted. Also we thank the instructors (Allan Lavell, Francisco Meza, Elizabeth Mansilla and Pascal Girot), and participants of the workshop on methodological guidelines for researching and writeshop for the Latin American region, July 2529, 2011, held at CATIE, Turrialba, Costa Rica, organized by Dr. Lisa Schipper and supported by Stockholm Environment Institute. We gratefully acknowledge the comments and suggestions of the anonymous reviewers whose comments have substantially improved the paper.

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