IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i13p7142-d588041.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Climate Change and Its Impacts on Farmer’s Livelihood in Different Physiographic Regions of the Trans-Boundary Koshi River Basin, Central Himalayas

Author

Listed:
  • Basanta Paudel

    (Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
    Kathmandu Center for Research and Education, Chinese Academy of Sciences–Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu 44613, Nepal)

  • Zhaofeng Wang

    (Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China)

  • Yili Zhang

    (Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
    Kathmandu Center for Research and Education, Chinese Academy of Sciences–Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu 44613, Nepal
    Department of Land Change Science and Biogeography, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China)

  • Mohan Kumar Rai

    (Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
    Department of Land Change Science and Biogeography, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China)

  • Pranesh Kumar Paul

    (Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Processes, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China)

Abstract

The impact of climate change on farmers’ livelihoods has been observed in various forms at the local and regional scales. It is well known that the Himalayas region is affected by climate change, as reflected in the basic knowledge of farmers in the region. A questionnaire-based survey involving a total of 747 households was conducted to gather information on climate change and its impact, where the survey addressed four physiographic regions of the trans-boundary Koshi River Basin (KRB). Moreover, climatic data were used to calculate climatic trends between 1980 and 2018. The Mann–Kendall trend test was performed and the Sen’s slope calculated to analyze the inter-annual climatic trends over time. The survey noted that, for the basin, there was an increase in temperature, climate-induced diseases of crops, an increase in the frequency of pests as well as drought and floods and a decrease in rainfall, all which are strong indicators of climate change. It was perceived that these indicators had adverse impacts on crop production (89.4%), human health (82.5%), livestock (68.7%) and vegetation (52.1%). The observed climatic trends for all the physiographic regions included an increasing temperature trend and a decreasing rainfall trend. The rate of change varied according to each region, hence strongly supporting the farmers’ local knowledge of climate change. The highest increasing trend of temperature noted in the hill region at 0.0975 °C/a ( p = 0.0002) and sharpest decreasing trend of rainfall in the mountain region by −10.424 mm/a ( p = 0.016) between 1980 and 2018. Formulation of suitable adaptation strategies according to physiographic region can minimize the impact of climate change. New adaptation strategies proposed include the introduction of infrastructure for irrigation systems, the development of crop seeds that are more tolerant to drought, pests and disease tolerance, and the construction of local hospitals for the benefit of farming communities.

Suggested Citation

  • Basanta Paudel & Zhaofeng Wang & Yili Zhang & Mohan Kumar Rai & Pranesh Kumar Paul, 2021. "Climate Change and Its Impacts on Farmer’s Livelihood in Different Physiographic Regions of the Trans-Boundary Koshi River Basin, Central Himalayas," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-18, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:13:p:7142-:d:588041
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/13/7142/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/13/7142/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Uttam Babu Shrestha & Asheshwor Man Shrestha & Suman Aryal & Sujata Shrestha & Madhu Sudan Gautam & Hemant Ojha, 2019. "Climate change in Nepal: a comprehensive analysis of instrumental data and people’s perceptions," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 154(3), pages 315-334, June.
    2. Keith Fuglie, 2021. "Climate change upsets agriculture," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 11(4), pages 294-295, April.
    3. Han Wu & Donghong Xiong & Bintao Liu & Su Zhang & Yong Yuan & Yiping Fang & Chhabi Lal Chidi & Nirmal Mani Dahal, 2019. "Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Drought Variability Using CWSI in the Koshi River Basin (KRB)," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-11, August.
    4. Jacqueline D. Lau & Danika Kleiber & Sarah Lawless & Philippa J. Cohen, 2021. "Gender equality in climate policy and practice hindered by assumptions," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 11(3), pages 186-192, March.
    5. Basanta Paudel & Yili Zhang & Jianzhong Yan & Raju Rai & Lanhui Li & Xue Wu & Prem Sagar Chapagain & Narendra Raj Khanal, 2020. "Farmers’ understanding of climate change in Nepal Himalayas: important determinants and implications for developing adaptation strategies," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 485-502, February.
    6. Basanta Paudel & Jungang Gao & Yili Zhang & Xue Wu & Shicheng Li & Jianzhong Yan, 2016. "Changes in Cropland Status and Their Driving Factors in the Koshi River Basin of the Central Himalayas, Nepal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-17, September.
    7. Ariel Ortiz-Bobea & Toby R. Ault & Carlos M. Carrillo & Robert G. Chambers & David B. Lobell, 2021. "Anthropogenic climate change has slowed global agricultural productivity growth," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 11(4), pages 306-312, April.
    8. Abid Hussain & Golam Rasul & Bidhubhusan Mahapatra & Shahriar Wahid & Sabarnee Tuladhar, 2018. "Climate change-induced hazards and local adaptations in agriculture: a study from Koshi River Basin, Nepal," 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. 91(3), pages 1365-1383, April.
    9. Rohini P. Devkota & Vishnu P. Pandey & Utsav Bhattarai & Harshana Shrestha & Shrijwal Adhikari & Khada Nanda Dulal, 2017. "Climate change and adaptation strategies in Budhi Gandaki River Basin, Nepal: a perception-based analysis," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 140(2), pages 195-208, January.
    10. Neera Shrestha Pradhan & Suman Sijapati & Sagar Ratna Bajracharya, 2015. "Farmers' responses to climate change impact on water availability: insights from the Indrawati Basin in Nepal," International Journal of Water Resources Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(2), pages 269-283, June.
    11. Shilong Piao & Philippe Ciais & Yao Huang & Zehao Shen & Shushi Peng & Junsheng Li & Liping Zhou & Hongyan Liu & Yuecun Ma & Yihui Ding & Pierre Friedlingstein & Chunzhen Liu & Kun Tan & Yongqiang Yu , 2010. "The impacts of climate change on water resources and agriculture in China," Nature, Nature, vol. 467(7311), pages 43-51, September.
    12. Ram Shah & Subodh Sharma & Peter Haase & Sonja Jähnig & Steffen Pauls, 2015. "The climate sensitive zone along an altitudinal gradient in central Himalayan rivers: a useful concept to monitor climate change impacts in mountain regions," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 132(2), pages 265-278, September.
    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. Bimala Gharti Magar & Jiban Mani Poudel & Basanta Paudel & Binod Pokharel, 2024. "Climate change in outskirts of Kathmandu Valley: local perception and narratives," 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. 120(9), pages 8103-8120, July.

    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. Basanta Paudel & Yili Zhang & Jianzhong Yan & Raju Rai & Lanhui Li & Xue Wu & Prem Sagar Chapagain & Narendra Raj Khanal, 2020. "Farmers’ understanding of climate change in Nepal Himalayas: important determinants and implications for developing adaptation strategies," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 485-502, February.
    2. Saara Ranabhat & Suman Acharya & Suraj Upadhaya & Bikash Adhikari & Ram Thapa & Sadhana Ranabhat & Dev Raj Gautam, 2023. "Climate change impacts and adaptation strategies in watershed areas in mid-hills of Nepal," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 13(2), pages 240-252, June.
    3. Muhammad Humayun Kabir & Kh. Zulfikar Hossain & Md. Javed Azad & Mou Leong Tan, 2022. "Farmers’ climate change risk perception, adaptation capacity and barriers to adaptation: a multi-method approach," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 12(4), pages 769-781, December.
    4. Kumar Bahadur Darjee & Prem Raj Neupane & Michael Köhl, 2023. "Proactive Adaptation Responses by Vulnerable Communities to Climate Change Impacts," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-30, July.
    5. Douglas James Merrey & Abid Hussain & Deepak Dorje Tamang & Bhuwan Thapa & Anjal Prakash, 2018. "Evolving high altitude livelihoods and climate change: a study from Rasuwa District, Nepal," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 10(4), pages 1055-1071, August.
    6. He, Liuyue & Xu, Zhenci & Wang, Sufen & Bao, Jianxia & Fan, Yunfei & Daccache, Andre, 2022. "Optimal crop planting pattern can be harmful to reach carbon neutrality: Evidence from food-energy-water-carbon nexus perspective," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 308(C).
    7. Ding, Yimin & Wang, Weiguang & Song, Ruiming & Shao, Quanxi & Jiao, Xiyun & Xing, Wanqiu, 2017. "Modeling spatial and temporal variability of the impact of climate change on rice irrigation water requirements in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 89-101.
    8. Bu, Lingduo & Chen, Xinping & Li, Shiqing & Liu, Jianliang & Zhu, Lin & Luo, Shasha & Lee Hill, Robert & Zhao, Ying, 2015. "The effect of adapting cultivars on the water use efficiency of dryland maize (Zea mays L.) in northwestern China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 1-9.
    9. Wenfeng Chi & Yuanyuan Zhao & Wenhui Kuang & Tao Pan & Tu Ba & Jinshen Zhao & Liang Jin & Sisi Wang, 2021. "Impact of Cropland Evolution on Soil Wind Erosion in Inner Mongolia of China," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-16, June.
    10. Lipy Adhikari & Sabarnee Tuladhar & Abid Hussain & Kamal Aryal, 2019. "Are Traditional Food Crops Really ‘Future Smart Foods?’ A Sustainability Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-16, September.
    11. Zhang, Yang & Zhang, Yan & Gao, Yan & McLaughlin, Neil B. & Huang, Dandan & Wang, Yang & Chen, Xuewen & Zhang, Shixiu & Liang, Aizhen, 2024. "Effects of tillage practices on environment, energy, and economy of maize production in Northeast China," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    12. Gong, Ziqian & Baker, Justin S. & Wade, Christopher M. & Havlík, Petr, 2024. "Irrigation intensification in U.S. agriculture under climate change – an adaptation mechanism or trade-induced response?," 2024 Annual Meeting, July 28-30, New Orleans, LA 343581, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    13. Alice Tianbo Zhang & Sasmita Patnaik & Shaily Jha & Shalu Agrawal & Carlos F. Gould & Johannes Urpelainen, 2022. "Evidence of multidimensional gender inequality in energy services from a large-scale household survey in India," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 7(8), pages 698-707, August.
    14. Xu, Ying & Findlay, Christopher, 2019. "Farmers’ constraints, governmental support and climate change adaptation: Evidence from Guangdong Province, China," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 63(4), October.
    15. Xin Xuan & Bing Liu & Fan Zhang, 2021. "Climate Change and Adaptive Management: Case Study in Agriculture, Forestry and Pastoral Areas," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-17, August.
    16. Zhongen Niu & Huimin Yan & Fang Liu, 2020. "Decreasing Cropping Intensity Dominated the Negative Trend of Cropland Productivity in Southern China in 2000–2015," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-14, December.
    17. Yuhong Shuai & Liming Yao, 2021. "Adjustable Robust Optimization for Multi-Period Water Allocation in Droughts Under Uncertainty," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 35(12), pages 4043-4065, September.
    18. Liu, Yong & Ruiz-Menjivar, Jorge & Zhang, Junbiao, 2022. "Climate adaptation and technical efficiency of rice production in Central China," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322521, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    19. Zhang, Fengtai & Xiao, Yuedong & Gao, Lei & Ma, Dalai & Su, Ruiqi & Yang, Qing, 2022. "How agricultural water use efficiency varies in China—A spatial-temporal analysis considering unexpected outputs," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    20. Roopam Shukla & Ankit Agarwal & Kamna Sachdeva & Juergen Kurths & P. K. Joshi, 2019. "Climate change perception: an analysis of climate change and risk perceptions among farmer types of Indian Western Himalayas," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 152(1), pages 103-119, January.

    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:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:13:p:7142-:d:588041. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.