Climate change in Lamjung District, Nepal: meteorological evidence, community perceptions, and responses

Abstract

Climate change is a global threat which has particularly strong impacts on countries whose economies are highly dependent on agriculture and still developing-like Nepal. As these impacts increase, there is a need to understand how those most vulnerable are experiencing and reacting to climate change. As such, this study aims to understand the effects of climate change via changes in atmospheric conditions in Bansar Village Development Committee, a rural community located in Lamjung District, and document community-led adaptation strategies. Household surveys and focused group discussions were conducted in conjunction with long-term meteorological data. Results show the temperature has increased significantly in the study area. Additionally, precipitation has increased in the pre-monsoon, monsoon, and post-monsoon season while it has decreased in winter leading to droughts. The probability of erratic rainfall occurrence and severe weather such as hailstorms has also increased. Lastly, invasive species have been reported and observed. The combination of these impacts has led to increased crop failure and consequently decreased agricultural production thus threatening the livelihoods of this agricultural based community. However, Bansar residents are actively working to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change. Their responses include changing farming methods and installing new water infrastructure.

Climate Change: It’s Causes, Inflicted Hazards, Adopted Strategies and Opportunities in Agriculture of Nepal: A Detailed Review

“…Temperature rise combined with irregular patterns of rain and unpredictable moisture favors livestock, plant diseases and pest outbreak were also supported by (Singh et al 2000;Basu and Bandhyopadhyay 2004;Sirohi and Michaelowa 2007). Household surveys and focused group discussions conducted in Lamjung district showed community perceptions regarding rainfall, 90% respondents claimed increasing erratic rainfall and 65% claimed decreased frequency (Joshi et al, 2019). Data from meteorological station showed increasing monsoon, pre monsoon and post monsoon rainfall but decreasing winter rainfall.…”

“…It extends to Saara jungle in the west. Country is divided into 5 major physiographic regions: Terai plains (up to 700 masl), Siwalik Hills (700-1500 masl), Middle mountains (1500-2700 masl), High Mountains (2000-4000 masl) and High Himalayas (4000-8848 masl) ( Anuska Joshi et al, 2019). Climate ranges from subtropical in south to arctic in north (Shrestha and Aryal, 2011).…”

On farmers’ perceptions of climate change and its nexus with climate data and adaptive capacity. A comprehensive review

“…United Kingdom, Germany, and South Africa complete the list of authors' countries appearing in more than 20 papers. Likewise, the highest co-authors' collaboration is exemplified in three main clusters, where the one co-led by the United States (Joshi et al 2019) and Australia (Jamal et al 2021) is the most relevant in terms of geographical interdependence, and, together with the cluster led by China and Germany (Abid et al 2019, Sorgho et al 2020, make most than one-third of the collection since 2018. China has the maximum number of single country papers.…”

“…Four out of ten (44%) of the sample agree about a common pattern of decreasing rainfall amount (Yamba et al 2019, Zhang et al 2019, including a reduction in the average number of rainy days (Limuwa et al 2018), while studies in which climate data corroborates an increase of rainy days (Hundera et al 2019) or winter precipitation (Chaulagain and Rimal 2019) during summer are less abundant. However, some studies (41%) characterize rainfall patterns as erratic, unpredictable, with highly dispersed rains, or onset and cessation rains (Meze-Hausken 2004, Kabote et al 2017, Mkonda and He 2017), especially when considering geographical contexts affected by the monsoon season (Joshi et al 2019, Melvani et al 2020. In addition, a decreased length of the wet season is observed in some papers (9%), especially regarding the number of consecutive wet days (Muthuwatta et al 2017).…”

Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment in the High Mountain Region of Nepal: A Case Study of Lamjung District

“…Nepal has an extremely varied and complex climate, driven by the uneven terrain and regional weather systems. Nepal is experiencing higher rate of climate change [37][38][39]. The analysis of temperature shows a trend of warming by 0.4°C-0.6°C per decade [33,40].…”