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Rural communities in the Koshi River basin, a trans-boundary river basin in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas, have been experiencing unprecedented difficulties for adapting with the livelihood challenges arising from floods, droughts and other climatic, environmental and socio-economic stresses. The single purpose adaptation approach often fails to address the multiple challenges arises from cascading effects of climate change at different scales and stages.
For effective development and adaptation interventions in resource-poor regions to take place, it is critical to identify, at the highest spatial scale possible, regions of higher priority based on current needs and vulnerabilities. The index-based assessment of vulnerability to climate change and variability is typically used to identify administrative-level regions of high vulnerability using various socioeconomic and biophysical datasets.
Changes in climate, associated hazards, local adaptations in agriculture, and socioeconomic factors affecting adaptation were investigated using data from a large survey of 2310 households (HHs) in the Koshi River Basin (KRB), Nepal. More than 80% of HHs had perceived changes in climate in the 10 years preceding the survey, and 20–40% had perceived increases in the occurrence of droughts, dry spells, floods, and livestock diseases.
Drought, a slow phenomenon, increases severity in agriculture that is directly or indirectly linked with water. Livelihood of rural people in Nepal mainly depends on agriculture, therefore, drought either results in diversification of livelihood or most likely increase poverty. Thus, severity of drought leading to migration (permanent and seasonal) as a common livelihood strategy was studied in Pakarbas (Khadadevi Municipality) and Chisapani (Manthali Municipality) of Ramechhap District in Nepal.
Climate change, particularly at South Asia region is having a huge impact on precipitation patterns, its intensity and extremeness. Mountainous area is much sensitive to these extreme events, hence having adverse effect on environment as well as people in term of fluctuation in water supply as well as frequent extreme weather events such as flood, landslide etc.
This paper presents the results of study carried out with the objective of identifying the vulnerable community at ward level of Chisapaani V.D.C of Ramechhap District of Nepal. Vulnerability assessment framework with list of indicators and determinants was prepared and finalized on the basis of literature review of previous works and updated with village development committee (VDC) specific information