People's experience and facts of changing climate: impacts and responses

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the local knowledge on climate change, its impacts and the responses they are making at the household or community level to deal with the changes on the basis of their experiences and perceptions. Design/methodology/approach – The study was based on household survey conducted with one male and one female respondent in 202 households. Alongside, series of focused group discussions were conducted with local people to capture the perception on about climate change, its impacts and adaptation strategies applied to enhance their resilience capacity to changing climate. Rainfall and temperature data were collected from Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) for seven and four different stations, respectively, within Kathmandu Valley and analyzed to understand the climatic trend. Findings – The perception of most of the local people on changes in temperature was almost in line with the recorded long-term climatic trend both showing an increasing trend, whereas the perc...