**3.2 Undertaking meta-analysis: Case in research of vulnerability to coastal hazards**

Although the meta-analysis has developed remarkably, there are however few uses of this methodology in the field of natural hazard research. Harremoes, Gee et al. (2001) studied 14 "man-made" disaster cases and investigated the reasons behind ineffective early warnings. The study demonstrated that in most cases information warning of the potential harm was available at an early stage, but that due to the complexity of the situation, lack of awareness, and the politically high stakes of the decision-making process, many warnings were not implemented effectively or not implemented at all. Other typical researches in environmentrelated and vulnerability researches are those from Geist and Lambin (2004) on the desertification in tropical areas and from Misselhorn (2005) on the vulnerability to food security in Africa (Geist and Lambin 2004; Misselhorn 2005).

Here in this study, the meta-analysis is practicalized in 6 steps: 1) formulating the research questions, 2) choosing an appropriate conceptual framework, 3) developing a literature search strategy, 4) collecting case studies, 5) coding information from individual case studies, 5) formulating and describing the object under investigation, and 6) synthesizing the data collected from individual case studies.
