Climate change and adaptation strategies in Budhi Gandaki River Basin, Nepal: a perception-based analysis

Abstract

People’s perceptions can reflect local issues and concerns to reveal actual impacts of climate change/variability (CCV) on their lives and livelihoods. As climate change (CC) adaptation strategies are to be implemented at the local level, involving local people right from the beginning of problem diagnosis ensures their successful implementation. This study has adopted a perception-based approach to assess CCV, its effects in terms of extreme events and prioritize adaptation strategies to enhance resilience of the communities, in the Budhi Gandaki River Basin (BGRB), Nepal. It is likely that valuing local knowledge and experiences makes people more responsive to the intervention and backing up the perception results by scientific data analysis establishes a sense of legitimacy to what people have perceived. Results showed that people have perceived CCV in various forms such as increase in temperature, decrease in pre-monsoon and monsoon rainfall, and more erratic rainfall timing in recent years. These perceived impacts are consistent with trends in observed rainfall and temperature data in the study area. The CCV has led to increase in frequency of extreme events - both floods and droughts, and associated impacts. As an adaptation strategy, people prioritized ‘technological measures’ as the most effective for both flood and drought. The analysis provided herein confirms that combining scientific facts with people’s perception helps establish more reliant knowledgebase of CC to better plan and develop climate-resilient communities.