Climate Change Impacts on Livelihood Vulnerability Assessment-Adaptation and Mitigation Options in Marine Hot Spots in Kerala, India

Abstract

Climate change, a global challenge facing mankind necessitates governments to develop mitigation and adaptation plans. The climate change has multidimensional impacts on environment, fishery, social, economic and development drivers. Climate change hot spots –can be defined as the ‘live labs’ where the manifestation of the climate change impacts is observed “first”. The South west India has been recognised as one among the twenty four hot spot regions identified globally. The present paper assessed the climate change vulnerability of over 800 fisher households in two major fishing villages of Kerala from the south west hotspot regions of India. Exposure (E), Sensitivity (S) and Adaptive Capacity (AC) are the pertinent factors that determine the vulnerability of households which were captured using a structured household questionnaire. One ninety eight indicators were identified in the construction of vulnerability indices of which 37 related to sensitivity, 36 related to exposure and the other 125 indicators dealt with adaptive capacity. The overall vulnerability of the regions was assessed and the analysis revealed that the Poonthura village of Kerala was more vulnerable when compared to Elamkunnapuzha. The coastal population on their vulnerability scores were categorised into low, moderate, high and very high based on score values and geo-spatial analysis was attempted. The results revealed that majority of fisher households in both villages were highly vulnerable to climate change, which is a major cause of concern. The study advocates the need for a bottom up approach with the proactive participation of the fishers in developing location specific adaptation and mitigation plans to ensure the livelihood of the fishers and the sustainable development of the fisheries sector in the climate change regime.

Adaptive Capacity of the Communities in View of Climate Change in Areas Vulnerable to Malaria in the Himalayan Region of India

“…Knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) surveys have been used previously and was used to assess the adaptive capacity of communities to potential risk of malaria due to climate change. [9][10][11][12] District Average score The socio-economic status of the communities was good, with only 12% households below the poverty line and 43% earning more than INR 100,000 per annum. This was reflected in better housing conditions observed in most of the villages surveyed.…”