Based on spatial variation and time, climate change has various levels of impacts on different communities and sometime with the state of development as well. The rural mountainous households that depend on natural resources for subsistence livelihoods and agriculture are particularly vulnerable with changing climate. Livelihood vulnerability assessment at local level is imperative to formulate appropriate adaptation policy and programs to address their livelihood challenges. This paper explored two vulnerability assessment indices, livelihood vulnerability index and IPCC vulnerability index by surveying 150 households from three village development committees (VDCs) in Lamjung district, Nepal. Data related to climate variables, natural disasters, water and food security, health, socio-demographics, livelihood strategies, and social network were collected and combined into indices. Both indices differed based on well-being status, gender of the household head and location across the households of three VDCs. The analysis was based on indices constructed from selected indicators measuring exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Results indicated that very poor and poor households, and female-headed households were more vulnerable than medium, well-off and male-headed households. The availability of livelihood diversified strategies, education, establishment of early warning system to climate extreme will help to reduce vulnerability to climate change in the study areas. The findings help in designing priority areas of intervention for adaptation plan to reduce vulnerability and enhance the resilience of the mountainous households to climate change.

Soil chambers with 3 types of soil treatment were used to analyze the environmental factors controlling carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emission in forest soils of Japan and to separately determine CO 2 emission from root respiration, microbial decomposition of organic matter in the O layer and in the mineral soil layers. Soil chambers were installed at the Kyoto, Miyazu-Oak, Miyazu-Cedar, Miyazu-Beech and Nobeyama sites; the sites differed from each other in soil temperature, vegetation and parent materials. The soil treatments applied at each of the 5 sites were as follows: (1) control plot, (2) O-plot with removal of the O layer, (3) root-plot with the suppression of root respiration by inserting the chambers to a depth of 20 cm and sealing the bottom. The CO 2 emission levels at all sites were significantly correlated with soil temperature, but not with soil moisture levels. The annual rates of soil organic matter decomposition simulated based on the automatically recorded soil temperature were 5.1, 4.0, 5.2, 5.5 and 3.4 Mg C ha −1 at the Kyoto, Miyazu-Oak, Miyazu-Cedar, Miyazu-Beech and Nobeyama sites, respectively. These rates were influenced by soil temperature, litter fall rates and the carbon stocks. In contrast, the ratio of the annual rate of root respiration to the annual rate of soil respiration decreased as soil temperature decreased. Based on the carbon budget, the Miyazu-Cedar and Nobeyama sites appeared to have lost their soil carbon stock. For more accurate analysis, methods for the direct measurement of the input rate of root litter should be developed.

Nutrient deficiency, high rate of evapotranspiration, and insufficient and erratic rainfall are the critical challenges for crop production in the dryland areas (DLAs) of Sub-Saharan Africa, including Tanzania, where 61% of arable land is prone to drought. In addressing these challenges, field trials were conducted in central Tanzania to evaluate the interactive effects of ripping and tie-ridges with organic (FYM) and inorganic fertilizers (N) on the mitigation of the critical period of soil moisture stress (CPSMS) for sorghum yield performance. Both in situ rainwater harvesting techniques (IRWHT) and flat-cultivated land were integrated with 8 Mg FYM ha-1 , 70 Kg N ha-1 , and a combination of 35 Kg N ha-1 and 4 Mg FYM ha-1 (N+ FYM). Among the IRWHT, tie-ridges stored a significant water volume of 577 and 457 m 3 ha-1 , which mitigated the CPSMS by the maximum of 95% and 37% for the above-average rainfall and below-average rainfall season, respectively. However, it only registered the highest grain yield (2.02 Mg ha-1) and biomass (3.46 Mg ha-1) in a belowaverage rainfall season. The highest overall grain yield (5.73 Mg ha-) and biomass (12.09 Mg ha-1) were harvested in ripping with combined fertilizer treatments in an above-average rainfall season, while the lowest grain yield (0.5 Mg ha-1) and biomass (1.2 Mg ha-1) were registered in the flat-cultivation control in the belowaverage rainfall season. In the latter season, IRWHT increased the mitigation potential in the order; flat cultivation < ripping < tie-ridges; and sorghum yield, highly correlated with drought mitigation index. The results showed that sorghum grain yield and final biomass performance depend on the influence of IRWHT applied, rainfall amount, soil moisture level, integrated fertilizer, and length of the CPSMS. In the aboveaverage rainfall seasons, fertilizers mask the influence of the IRWHT. The opposite is true in the below-average rainfall season. Although ripping-N+ FYM resulted in the highest overall yield, the study recommends practicing tie-ridges integrated with N+ FYM due to regular occurrences of low and unreliable rainfall in the dryland areas.

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