Household Vulnerability under Changing Climate: Evidence from Semi-Arid Tropics (SAT) of India Khed Vijayalaxmi*, Umesh K. B. Department of Agricultural Economics, College of Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India *Correspondance: vijayalaxmikhed39@gmail.com
Online published on 31 May, 2019. Abstract In the context of pragmatic climate change impacts and their effect on agriculture and household livelihood, this study aims to assess the vulnerability of rural households in semi-arid tropics (SAT) of India. For this study, we used 2009–2014 panel data of 837 households collected by the International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) under the Village Dynamics in South Asia (SAT) project. The rainfall and temperature data for the period 2000–2014 have been used. To analyze the data, we adapted and applied the vulnerability indices developed by the International Panel on Climate Change: Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) and Socio-economic Vulnerability Index (SeVI) with the set indicators explaining the three important components of vulnerability to climate change, i.e., exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. The study found a correlation between positive deviation of rainfall and temperature in the study area. The results from the vulnerability assessment indicates that exposure and lack of adaptive capacity to climate induced shocks explain the vulnerability of rural households. The exploratory results show that SAT villages were vulnerable to climate variability. The index values of LVI and SeVI for the SAT villages were 0.333 and 0.645, respectively. It shows that, households who are already poor, climatic shocks make them still more poor and vulnerable. The outcomes of this study may be considered in formulating effective coping strategies and policies that may help to mitigate climatic shocks. The findings and recommendations can be generalized to the resource poor and rainfed areas of SAT. Top Keywords Vulnerability, Sensitivity, Exposure, Adaptive capacity, Climate change, Semi-arid. Top |