摘要：With a worldwide increase in disasters, the effects of climate change are already being felt, and it is the urbanpoor in developing countries who are most at risk. There is an urgent need to better understand the factors that determine people'scapacity to cope with and adapt to adverse climate conditions. This paper examines the influence of formal education indetermining the adaptive capacity of the residents of two low-income settlements: Los Manantiales in San Salvador (El Salvador)and Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), where climate-related disasters are recurrent. In both case study areas, it was found thatthe average levels of education were lower for households living at high risk, as opposed to residents of lower risk areas. In thiscontext, the influence of people's level of education was identified to be twofold due to (a) its direct effect on aspects that reducerisk, and (b) its mitigating effect on aspects that increase risk. The results further suggest that education plays a more determinantrole for women than for men in relation to their capacity to adapt. In light of these results, the limited effectiveness of institutionalsupport identified by this study might also relate to the fact that the role of formal education has so far not been sufficientlyexplored. Promoting (improved access to and quality of) formal education as a way to increase people's adaptive capacity isfurther supported with respect to the negative effects of disasters on people's level of education, which in turn reduce theiradaptive capacity, resulting in a vicious circle of increasing risk
