Mapping coexisting hotspots of multidimensional food market (in)accessibility and climate vulnerability

Abstract

With the increasing likelihood of agricultural production failures under a warmer global climate, the importance of markets in providing access to nutrient-dense foods (NDFs) through trade is predicted to grow. However, regions with relatively poor access to markets and supporting infrastructures (e.g. roads and storage facilities) are potentially ill-equipped to deal with both short-term hydrometeorological hazards such as droughts and floods, and longer-term shifts in agricultural productivity. Despite the increasing focus upon markets within academic and policymaking circles, a regional-scale assessment of these potentially coexisting hotspots of vulnerability has not been conducted. We conduct a two-stage geospatial analysis integrating three publicly available datasets across the Indian states of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Odisha. Combining the 2011 national census with the new PMGSY-GeoSadak database, we conduct nearest neighbour analysis to measure multidimensional market inaccessibility by: (i) distance from a settlement to its nearest village, town or city with a market, (ii) distance from a settlement to its nearest major road, and (iii) distance from a settlement to its subdistrict headquarters. We then correlate these measures with India’s only district-wise assessment of climate vulnerability to identify hotspots of market inaccessibility and climate hazards. We find that the three market access measures are spatially autocorrelated and positively interrelated at the settlement (n = 129 555) and district (n = 107) levels, meaning that settlements located further from their nearest market tend to experience poorer road connectivity and access to the subdistrict economic hub. Approximately 18.5-million people live in districts with relatively high climate vulnerability and relatively high and multidimensional market inaccessibility. Hotspots of coexisting vulnerabilities are also disproportionately populated by ‘Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes’ (SC/ST) communities. The identification of coexisting hotspots has important implications for the development of equitable and resilient markets that bolster NDF access for climate vulnerable and nutritionally insecure populations.