Identifying strategies for adaptation of rural women to climate variability in water scarce areas

Abstract

The current research aims to identify adaptation strategies adopted by rural women of Fars province in dealing with climate variability. This study is applied in terms of purpose, descriptive-correlational in terms of methodology, and field type in terms of data collection. The statistical population were rural women who were members of agricultural households in Fars province, which have been affected by climatic variability in four climatic zones: cold, mild, hot, and very hot. This study was conducted using survey method. A structured questionnaire was designed and its face and content validities were verified using experts' opinions. The size of the studied sample was estimated using Cochran's formula. For sampling, a combined stratified and cluster sampling method was used. Data were collected from 406 respondents from 32 villages in eight counties of Fars province. Then, the data was analyzed. In total, 43 adaptation strategies of rural women were classified in the form of four categories of strategies for development and diversification of income sources, cost management, social capital management, and environmental stress management. The most important adaptation strategy used by rural women against climatic changes has been the cost management strategy. The use of facilities and loans is the most important strategy among the cost management strategies that can lead to reducing the negative effects of climate variability on rural women. Then, the strategy of development and diversification of income sources, management of social capital, and management of environmental tensions were placed in the second to fourth places of adaptation strategies used by rural women under climate variability. The results of this study indicate that the rural women of Fars province are not only passive victims of climate changes, but they act actively and hope to adapt to sudden climate changes. Using prudent strategies, they employ their experience and expertise to reduce the adverse effects of climate variability.

Adaptation of Agriculture to Climate Change: A Scoping Review

“…From the reviewed papers, 59 in English and 6 in Russian were included in the table. Most of the articles were from European countries (25) [33,47,71, and Asia (21) [13,17,[103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121], several from African countries (12) [11,68,69,[122][123][124][125][126][127][128][129][130], also South America (4) [131][132][133][134] and North America (2) [135,136], and one paper from Australia [137]. Of these papers, six [17,100,122,…”

“…Most of the descriptions of the climate change in different regions include increase of the mean annual or seasonal temperatures, changes in precipitation, both increase and/or decrease depending on the study area, higher frequencies of extreme weather events [33,[83][84][85]89,99,133], such as heat waves, droughts and associated wild fires e.g., [71,81,82,98,101,115,122,124,137] or floods [98,101], changing rainfall patterns [43]; changes in physical and geographical zoning [93,94], changes in agroclimatic indices such as Growing Degree Days [96,97] or Temperature-Humidity Index [135], growing season length of crops [118]; the sea level rise [118]; changes in coastal zones [110,116] or alteration of permafrost and glaciers melting [47,113,116]. An increase in the frequency, duration, and intensity of droughts as the most dangerous effects of climate change on agriculture has been detailed globally, in all regions, and in many countries [47,68,69,71,[80][81][82]89,99,101,102,…”

“…High temperatures and changes in precipitation also affect biotic factors, causing indirect effects such as intense weed growth, the incidence of pests and diseases, the introduction of new insects and diseases [13,47,111,112,122,131,134], or abiotic factors, such as widespread loss of nutrients [97,119]. Sea intrusion in coastal agricultural areas leads to agricultural land loss, pollutes freshwater resources, and increases salinity [11,47,109,110,112,115]. Another outcome is soil erosion and a decrease in its fertility [11,13,47,69,83,90,94,108,112,119,122].…”

“…Region-scale ASAs (Region) involve mainly formal decision-makers and employ methods and tools that include the same adaptation practices as at the local level, when these strategies and options are managed by various institutions-Union Councils, private companies, NGOs-at the regional level [71,85,95,118]. These ASAs include (i) farmers' education, knowledge transfer and management changes [103,104,107,115,118]; (ii) introduction and running of regional early warning weather systems [85,115]; (iii) using modern weather services by integrating them into various digital platforms [96]; (iv) improving agricultural consulting, insurance and credit services [85,97,107,112,115,118,129,134]; (v) reducing the agricultural dependence on chemicals and synthetic fertilizers [17,92,110,111,125]; (vi) modernization of and investments in irrigation systems [11,13,101,102,107,110,112,118,129]; (vii) use of agroforestry [13,85,111,125] and (viii) alternative agricultural techniques [121]; (ix) sequester carbon support biodiversity through habitat and green corridor creation [85,…”

“…It should be supplied by the government, not the competitive market, which can lead to the information being underprovided. Government roles should also include: (i) investment in R&D [93,95,97,113,115]; (ii) provision of transport, irrigation, and other infrastructure, and provision of a safety net for those who fail to successfully adapt to climate change [80,137]. Technological developments at the national scale include (iii) the development of early warning systems for risk communication to prevent loss from natural disasters [68,113,115].…”