Vulnerability and Resilience: Two Dimensions of Rurality

The idea of resilience seems to be replacing sustainability as a defining concept for rural development. And, like sustainability, resilience is a vague concept that has many definitions and implications. It captures the idea that rural regions are exposed to shocks that require a mix of efforts both to mitigate their impact and incidence, and to adapt to a new environment after a shock event. In this respect resilience has much in common with the concept of risk management, which is pervasive in economics. In the article concepts from risk management are linked to four categories of risk to demonstrate that the type of risk can suggest specific ways to think about resilience strategies. Because rural regions are inherently exposed to high levels of risk, and have significant constraints on their ability to mitigate it, developing a way to achieve greater resilience is both crucial and difficult. This suggests that many rural regions may remain vulnerable, despite efforts to mitigate risk and buffer its impacts.