Quantifying households' vulnerability, regional environmental indicators, and climate change mitigation by using a combination of vulnerability frameworks

Abstract

AbstractMany susceptible regions face significant climatic threats. This study proposes an extended framework by linking the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Vulnerability Framework and Sustainable Livelihood Framework to assess the impacts of ecological indicators, household vulnerability, and climate change mitigation. A major ecological region of northwestern Pakistan with diverse geographical and climatic conditions was selected. In total, 24 adjacent rural communes were randomly selected, and 300 farm households were face‐to‐face interviewed based on a pretested questionnaire. The study findings reveal that the Charsadda District is more vulnerable to climate change, having the highest exposure level compared to the Mardan District and the district of Nowshera. Our findings also show that there are small differences in adaptive capacity, sensitivity, and adaptation measures, and sensitivity sources are relatively distinctive among these three districts, which directly and indirectly influence the perception of farmers. Based on the sensitivity analysis, the sensitivity of the Mardan District is the highest in terms of crop and livestock diseases, while the highest sensitivity in terms of water is assumed in the Charsadda District. In terms of adaptive capacity, the advantages and disadvantages varied greatly between the three targeted study districts; specifically, Nowshera had equitable adaptive capacity, Mardan leaned entirely on capital sources, and Charsadda depended solely on advantages in education level. Diverse efforts to address the risks of climate change should be proposed aptly by considering the climatic, socioeconomic, and geographical characteristics of each district.