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The damages due to climatic extremes have gone up over the years, particularly in developing nations like India. Disaster-specific risk reduction measures have been adopted at both individual and policy levels to reduce potential impacts. At the same time, a variety of generic adaptation activities have also been undertaken. However, there is inconclusive empirical evidence on the effectiveness of these interventions in reducing damages from climatic extremes, especially for the developing nations. This study, therefore, examines the influence of disasterspecific and generic adaptation measures in reducing the damages resulting from the climate extremes like cyclones and floods in India. A district-level analysis was carried out for the state of Odisha, India from 1999 to 2008 using fixed effects for OLS and negative binomial models. Controlling for the influence of exposure and population, three major findings emerge: (1) households and policy makers have learned from the previous disaster experiences, i.e. there is a 'learning effect', (2) the disaster risk management programme undertaken by the government has reduced the damages from climate extremes, and (3) generic adaptation interventions are helpful. Since the frequency and intensity of these events are likely to increase because of climate change, these results have policy implications in the context of reducing potential impacts now and in the foreseeable future.Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the consumption behaviour and effectiveness of coping mechanisms adopted by households living in disaster-prone regions of rural India to cope with climatic aberrations and extremes using household-level data. In developing countries like India, poor households living in rural regions face risks to their livelihood due to climatic aberrations like deficient monsoon spells and rainfall gaps. Although these risks are covariate, the impact depends on location and the relative capacity of the people to cope with them. Design/methodology/approach – Using household-level data, this paper attempts to examine the consumption behaviour and effectiveness of coping mechanisms adopted by households living in these areas to hedge against the risks. A tobit and a multivariate probit model is used in the process. Findings – Based on the empirical analysis, and subject to the assumptions and the usual limitations of data, the findings suggest that households resort to consumption smoothening by liquidating their assets or decreasing consumption. Originality/value – They adopt a wide variety of ex-post risk-coping measures with limited success to overcome the shocks to their livelihood. Household-specific characteristics like age and education level of the household head are important in the choice of a particular coping option along with other key variables.

Households in India face numerous climatic shocks, including cyclones and floods, and these extreme events have a negative impact on their welfare. Although these impacts are likely to increase in the foreseeable future due to climate change, households are also taking up various coping measures to deal with the impacts from past shocks. Hence, assessing the impact of shocks and identifying the determinants of various coping options have relevant policy implications in the context of designing a disaster mitigation policy. This study examines the consumption behaviour and the determinants of traditional coping mechanisms adopted by the vulnerable households using household-level data collected from cyclone and flood prone districts of the state of Odisha in eastern India. The findings suggest that: (i) partial consumption smoothing is exhibited with respect to household-specific characteristics, (ii) increasing impacts on assets and health expenditure due to floods inhibit consumption patterns of households and (iii) the adopted traditional coping mechanisms are specific to location and household characteristics.