Determinants of household livelihood vulnerabilities to climate change in the himalayan foothills of West Bengal, India

Abstract

The impact of climate change and variability on household livelihood in the Himalayan region is hardly studied due to their locational inaccessibility. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to determine the factors which affect rural household vulnerability in sub-Himalayan West Bengal, India. How the socio-economic conditions of the households and climate change have been affecting the overall livelihood of this region? To understand the determining factors of household livelihood vulnerabilities, four main domains of vulnerabilities have been considered, namely, ‘income loss’, ‘crop loss’, ‘housing loss’, and ‘overall livelihood loss’ due to climate changes. The study has applied ordinal logistic regression along with focus group discussion to find out the determining factors. The survey data shows that specific variables such as the size of agricultural land, occupation of the households' heads, caste, membership of self-help groups, and perception of precipitation trends are the main determining factors of income loss in maximum households. Moreover, housing type, mainly non-concrete and semi-concrete houses are responsible for household vulnerability to climate change. Every household of this region loses a significant amount of crop due to the heavy rainfall or floods; although several households have adopted new resilient crop varieties. Nevertheless, crop loss is a major climatic threat in the sub-Himalayan region of West Bengal. Further, the results of the present study also suggest that the low adaptive capacity of the rural households of this region, such as low-income opportunities and inadequate infrastructure are the primarily reasons for most livelihood vulnerabilities.