Differential impacts of climate change on communities in the middle hills region of Nepal

Type Journal Article - Natural hazards
Title Differential impacts of climate change on communities in the middle hills region of Nepal
Author(s)
Volume 74
Issue 2
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2014
Page numbers 815-836
URL http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11069-014-1218-0
Abstract
There is a growing understanding that the impacts of climate change affect
different communities within a country, in a variety of ways—not always uniformly. This
article reports on research conducted in the middle hills region of Nepal that explored
climate change vulnerability in terms of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity across
different well-being groups, genders of the head of household and household location. In
the study region, dry land farming has increasingly experienced climate-induced changes
to farm productivity and natural resources. The experience of vulnerability to decreased
livelihood options and natural resource hazards due to a changing climate varied according
to household wealth and well-being status, with very poor and poor households more
vulnerable than medium and well-off households. The research indicates that the climate
change adaptation would benefit by considering: (i) differential impacts of vulnerability
mainly based on well-being status of households; (ii) understanding of the local sociopolitical
context and underlying causes of vulnerability and its application; and (iii)
identifying vulnerable populations for the units of vulnerability analysis and adaptation
planning.

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