Barriers and requirements to climate change adaptation of mountainous rural communities in developing countries: The case of the eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau of China

Abstract

Systematically identifying the barriers and requirements to adaptation is critical to the successful implementation of climate adaptation planning and policies at the local level, especially in the mountainous rural communities of developing countries with limited resources and technology. We conducted an empirical study of the barriers and requirements to adapting to climate change of 539 peasant households in an ecologically vulnerable area of China to enhance their resilience to climate change by improving our understanding of adaptation process and decision-making. Our findings indicated that farmers in the Gannan Plateau face multiple adaptation barriers, of which normative, information and technology barriers were more serious, such as lack of meteorological information service, infrastructure and technology extension in agriculture or animal husbandry. Adaptation requirements are an important way to effectively reduce or eliminate obstacles and improve farmers' adaptive capacity to climate change. The survey found that local households have an urgent requirement for infrastructure, information and production technologies, such as water, electricity, transportation facilities, disaster warning information, employment information and farming or breeding techniques. In addition, due to the influence of economic level, education level, years of farming, gender and other factors, differences exist in the adaptation barriers and requirements faced by farmers in different regions. These findings extend empirical evidence in favor of formulating a reasonable adaptation framework and choosing optimal adaptation strategies, which are essential for enacting well-targeted regional adaptation policies.