IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/lauspo/v130y2023ics0264837723001217.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does climate change leads to severe household-level vulnerability? Evidence from the Western Ghats of Kerala, India

Author

Listed:
  • Raj, Renjith
  • Sofi, Arfat Ahmad

Abstract

Due to climate change, erratic and extreme rainfall events are rising in Kerala, India. This, in turn, is triggering landslides and floods in the Western Ghats of Kerala. Accordingly, this study analyzes the assessment and distribution of household level vulnerability toward climate change among the occupational categories in the Western Ghats of Kerala. Based on landslide data of Kerala for the years 2018 and 2019, five villages from the Idukki district of Kerala that accounts for the highest number of landslides are selected as the study region. The landslides and floods have either entirely or partially destroyed 3367 households in the study region during 2018 and 2019. Among these, 348 families are chosen for the study. We have adopted a stratified random sampling technique. The households belonging to all occupational categories are included in the sample. To facilitate the analysis, we have developed the concept of adaptive capacity entitlement to analyze the household-level vulnerability differences among occupational categories. Accordingly, data is elicited using an interview schedule and analyzed using robust logistic regression models. The results show that agrarian households are significantly vulnerable to landslides and floods. Among agrarian households, agricultural laborers tend to be the most vulnerable. A substantial number of agricultural laborer households live in hazard-prone regions, resulting in unequally distributed exposure to climatic hazards. The study reveals that the family's historic wealth (landholding) plays a significant role in households' capacity to attain entitlement. Besides, the entitlement enables the household to migrate to safer locations. The study highlights the need to frame a holistic climate adaptation policy for the region. For this reason, a sustainable land use policy has to be developed. Consequently, we recommend further studies to analyze the prospects and challenges of rehabilitation as well as land use regulation policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Raj, Renjith & Sofi, Arfat Ahmad, 2023. "Does climate change leads to severe household-level vulnerability? Evidence from the Western Ghats of Kerala, India," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:130:y:2023:i:c:s0264837723001217
    DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106655
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837723001217
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106655?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. M. K. Roxy & Subimal Ghosh & Amey Pathak & R. Athulya & Milind Mujumdar & Raghu Murtugudde & Pascal Terray & M. Rajeevan, 2017. "A threefold rise in widespread extreme rain events over central India," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 8(1), pages 1-11, December.
    2. Tebboth, M.G.L. & Conway, D. & Adger, W.N., 2019. "Mobility endowment and entitlements mediate resilience in rural livelihood systems," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100210, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Twecan, Dalson & Wang, Weiguang & Xu, Junzeng & Mohmmed, Alnail, 2022. "Climate change vulnerability, adaptation measures, and risk perceptions at households level in Acholi sub-region, Northern Uganda," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chigbu, Uchendu Eugene & Paradza, Gaynor & Nghitevelekwa, Romie Vonkie & Klaus, Michael, 2024. "Current research and opinion on land governance for societal development in and on the global south," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marion Borderon & Patrick Sakdapolrak & Raya Muttarak & Endale Kebede & Raffaella Pagogna & Eva Sporer, 2019. "Migration influenced by environmental change in Africa: A systematic review of empirical evidence," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(18), pages 491-544.
    2. Syed Abu Shoaib & Mohammad Zaved Kaiser Khan & Nahid Sultana & Taufique H. Mahmood, 2021. "Quantifying Uncertainty in Food Security Modeling," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-16, January.
    3. Wang, Weiwen & Gong, Jian & Wang, Ying & Shen, Yang, 2021. "Exploring the effects of rural site conditions and household livelihood capitals on agricultural land transfers in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    4. Jinxiu Liu & Weihao Shen & Yaqian He, 2021. "Effects of Cropland Expansion on Temperature Extremes in Western India from 1982 to 2015," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-17, May.
    5. Manabendra Saharia & Avish Jain & Ronit Raj Baishya & Saagar Haobam & O. P. Sreejith & D. S. Pai & Arezoo Rafieeinasab, 2021. "India flood inventory: creation of a multi-source national geospatial database to facilitate comprehensive flood research," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 108(1), pages 619-633, August.
    6. Shulei Cheng & Yu Yu & Wei Fan & Chunxia Zhu, 2022. "Spatio-Temporal Variation and Decomposition Analysis of Livelihood Resilience of Rural Residents in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(17), pages 1-25, August.
    7. Vittal Hari & Subimal Ghosh & Wei Zhang & Rohini Kumar, 2022. "Strong influence of north Pacific Ocean variability on Indian summer heatwaves," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-11, December.
    8. Avashia, Vidhee & Garg, Amit, 2020. "Implications of land use transitions and climate change on local flooding in urban areas: An assessment of 42 Indian cities," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    9. repec:ags:aaea22:335442 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. P. Suneetha & Zedek, M. D. & Ramalingeswara Rao, S. & Naga Lakshmi, K. & Latha. P. & O. S. R. U. Bhanu Kumar, 2018. "Study of Moisture Budget of Meteorological Droughts over Indian Region," Modern Applied Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 12(9), pages 221-221, September.
    11. Beyer,Robert Carl Michael & Narayanan,Abhinav & Thakur,Gogol Mitra, 2022. "Natural Disasters and Economic Dynamics : Evidence from the Kerala Floods," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10084, The World Bank.
    12. Xinming Liu & Zhe Song & Jie Xu & Weilin Feng & Wei Liu, 2024. "Impact of Linking Livelihood Resilience of Smallholder Households and the Risk Management Strategies: The Case of China from Socioeconomic Perspectives," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-20, September.
    13. Mark G. L. Tebboth & Catherine Locke, 2024. "Rural modernization and the remaking of the rural citizen in China: Village redevelopment, migration and precarity," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(2), pages 1129-1149, March.
    14. Amit Kumar & Abhilash Singh & Kumar Gaurav, 2023. "Assessing the synergic effect of land use and climate change on the upper Betwa River catchment in Central India under present, past, and future climate scenarios," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(6), pages 5163-5184, June.
    15. Aradhana Yaduvanshi & Ashwini Kulkarni & Ramkumar Bendapudi & Kaushik Haldar, 2020. "Observed changes in extreme rain indices in semiarid and humid regions of Godavari basin, India: risks and opportunities," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 103(1), pages 685-711, August.
    16. Tejasvi Chauhan & Anjana Devanand & Mathew Koll Roxy & Karumuri Ashok & Subimal Ghosh, 2023. "River interlinking alters land-atmosphere feedback and changes the Indian summer monsoon," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-13, December.
    17. Goyal, Manish Kumar & Gupta, Anil Kumar & Jha, Srinidhi & Rakkasagi, Shivukumar & Jain, Vijay, 2022. "Climate change impact on precipitation extremes over Indian cities: Non-stationary analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Climate change; Occupational categories; Household level vulnerability; Adaptive capacity entitlement; Western Ghats of Kerala;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q50 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - General
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q59 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Other

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:130:y:2023:i:c:s0264837723001217. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joice Jiang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/land-use-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.