Building climate change resilience by using a versatile toolkit for local governments and communities in rural Himalaya

Abstract

With the impacts of climate disruption becoming more evident there has been an increase in the uptake of climate change adaptation “toolkits” to assist local governments build community resilience and adapt to the impacts of climate change. There is increasing attention and call for practitioners to adopt proactive and participatory approaches to help in the adaptive response planning process. One such toolkit is the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCRN) Process (IAP). This is a simple but rigorous toolkit developed to help local governments in Asian cities build resilience to the impacts of climate change. This paper outlines the application of the toolkit to determine its versatility in the rural context and was trialled in the Himalayan rural enclave of Ramgad in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. Given the differences between urban and rural environments, the outcomes highlighted the need for further investigation and analysis into the process to ensure that the methodology truly reflects the nature of rural systems and their level of vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Overall, the toolkit proved to be a simple but versatile toolkit to assess the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of communities in rural Himalaya. Over 40 resilience intervention strategies were developed for the Ramgad enclave and these were prioritized according to their technical, political, social and economic feasibility.