IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/apjors/v7y2023i2d10.1007_s41685-022-00273-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Geographies of vulnerability to climate change: empirical evidences from the Indian Himalayan foothills

Author

Listed:
  • Manoranjan Ghosh

    (Fellow (ISCF) at National Institute of Urban Affairs
    Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur)

  • Somnath Ghosal

    (Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur)

Abstract

In India, there is a need for field survey-based vulnerability studies to overcome the uncertainties that exist in regional model-based climate vulnerability assessments. Therefore, the present study explored the regional patterns and their associated determinant factors of climate change vulnerability in the Himalayan Foothills of West Bengal to determine which regions are more vulnerable in the same geographical space. The research was conducted in the 13 Community Development Blocks (CD Blocks) of the Himalayan Foothills of West Bengal, India. The Socio-Economic Vulnerability Index (SEVI) was proposed to fulfill the above objectives. The present SEVI was comprised of seven subdimensions of climate change vulnerability: namely, climate variability, natural disaster risk, socio-demographic profile, livelihood strategy, environment profile, livelihood security, and accessibility of basic infrastructure covering three major vulnerability components, exposure, adaptive capacity, and sensitivity. The primary field survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire for data collection comprised of 22 indicators covering seven significant dimensions. The results suggest that Alipurduar-II, Jalpaiguri, and Mal, which are highly exposed to climate variability and natural disaster risk at the same time, have low adaptive capacities. The livelihood strategy, socio-demographic, and environmental profile were the determining factors of regional vulnerability in the study area. The CD blocks Falakata, Dhupguri, and Rajganj showed a higher adaptive capacity and were less sensitive to climate change vulnerability, even though exposure to climate change was the same in the entire area. The survey findings indicate that adaptive capacity is high in Falakata and Rajganj and these areas are less susceptible to climate change vulnerability. Finally, the appropriate recommendation is to develop a basic physical infrastructure, including bridges over the rivers and concrete village roads in all the flood-prone villages in the entire Himalayan Foothills of West Bengal for better connectivity. Also, household food availability should be secured through public distribution systems that develop the coping capacity of the region as a whole.

Suggested Citation

  • Manoranjan Ghosh & Somnath Ghosal, 2023. "Geographies of vulnerability to climate change: empirical evidences from the Indian Himalayan foothills," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 405-431, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:apjors:v:7:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s41685-022-00273-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s41685-022-00273-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41685-022-00273-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s41685-022-00273-4?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. Abid Hussain & Golam Rasul & Bidhubhusan Mahapatra & Sabarnee Tuladhar, 2016. "Household food security in the face of climate change in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 8(5), pages 921-937, October.
    2. Pailler, Sharon & Tsaneva, Magda, 2018. "The effects of climate variability on psychological well-being in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 15-26.
    3. Todd A. Crane & Aogán Delaney & Peter A. Tamás & Sabrina Chesterman & Polly Ericksen, 2017. "A systematic review of local vulnerability to climate change in developing country agriculture," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 8(4), July.
    4. Lee, Minsoo & Villaruel, Mai Lin & Gaspar, Raymond, 2016. "Effects of Temperature Shocks on Economic Growth and Welfare in Asia," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 501, Asian Development Bank.
    5. Suraje Dessai & Mike Hulme, 2004. "Does climate adaptation policy need probabilities?," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(2), pages 107-128, June.
    6. Rahman, H.M. Tuihedur & Mia, Md. Ekhlas & Ford, James D. & Robinson, Brian E. & Hickey, Gordon M., 2018. "Livelihood exposure to climatic stresses in the north-eastern floodplains of Bangladesh," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 199-214.
    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. Tofael Ahamed, 2023. "Special issue on the assessment of climate change impacts on regional economics in South Asia," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 323-328, June.

    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. Manoranjan Ghosh & Somnath Ghosal, 2021. "Climate change vulnerability of rural households in flood-prone areas of Himalayan foothills, West Bengal, India," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 2570-2595, February.
    2. Mir Khursheed Alam & Shyamasree Dasgupta & Anamika Barua & N. H. Ravindranath, 2022. "Assessing climate-relevant vulnerability of the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR): a district-level analysis," 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. 112(2), pages 1395-1421, June.
    3. S. Lorenz & S. Dessai & J. Paavola & P. Forster, 2015. "The communication of physical science uncertainty in European National Adaptation Strategies," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 143-155, September.
    4. H.M. Tuihedur Rahman & Gordon M. Hickey, 2020. "An Analytical Framework for Assessing Context-Specific Rural Livelihood Vulnerability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-26, July.
    5. Kartik Misra, 2019. "No Employment without Participation : An Evaluation of India's Employment Program in Eastern Uttar Pradesh," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2019-13, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    6. Sarker, Md Nazirul Islam & Wu, Min & Alam, GM Monirul & Shouse, Roger C, 2020. "Livelihood diversification in rural Bangladesh: Patterns and determinants in disaster prone riverine islands," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    7. Bethany Robinson & Jonathan D. Herman, 2019. "A framework for testing dynamic classification of vulnerable scenarios in ensemble water supply projections," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 152(3), pages 431-448, March.
    8. Ajay Gajanan Bhave & Neha Mittal & Ashok Mishra & Narendra Singh Raghuwanshi, 2016. "Integrated Assessment of no-Regret Climate Change Adaptation Options for Reservoir Catchment and Command Areas," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 30(3), pages 1001-1018, February.
    9. Jason Alexandra, 2021. "Navigating the Anthropocene’s rivers of risk—climatic change and science-policy dilemmas in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 1-21, March.
    10. Lipy Adhikari & Abid Hussain & Golam Rasul, 2017. "Tapping the Potential of Neglected and Underutilized Food Crops for Sustainable Nutrition Security in the Mountains of Pakistan and Nepal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-18, February.
    11. Johannes Klein & Sirkku Juhola & Mia Landauer, 2017. "Local authorities and the engagement of private actors in climate change adaptation," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(6), pages 1055-1074, September.
    12. Daregot Berihun & Passel Steven, 2022. "Climate variability and macroeconomic output in Ethiopia: the analysis of nexus and impact via asymmetric autoregressive distributive lag cointegration method," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 4064-4087, March.
    13. Christine M. Albano & Maureen I. McCarthy & Michael D. Dettinger & Stephanie A. McAfee, 2021. "Techniques for constructing climate scenarios for stress test applications," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 164(3), pages 1-25, February.
    14. Etienne Neethling & Théo Petitjean & Hervé Quénol & Gérard Barbeau, 2017. "Assessing local climate vulnerability and winegrowers’ adaptive processes in the context of climate change," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 22(5), pages 777-803, June.
    15. Mohd Danish Khan & Hong Ha Thi Vu & Quang Tuan Lai & Ji Whan Ahn, 2019. "Aggravation of Human Diseases and Climate Change Nexus," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(15), pages 1-26, August.
    16. Ullah, Ayat & Zeb, Alam & Liu, Jinlong & Mahmood, Nasir & Kächele, Harald, 2021. "Transhumant pastoralist knowledge of infectious diseases and adoption of alternative land use strategies in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan (HKH) region of Pakistan," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    17. Sujata Manandhar & Vishnu Pandey & Futaba Kazama, 2013. "Climate change and adaptation: an integrated framework linking social and physical aspects in poorly-gauged regions," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 120(4), pages 727-739, October.
    18. Kythreotis, Andrew P. & Hannaford, Matthew & Howarth, Candice & Bosworth, Gary, 2024. "Translating climate risk assessments into more effective adaptation decision-making: the importance of social and political aspects of place-based climate risk," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 122155, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Mora-Rivera, Jorge & van Gameren, Edwin, 2021. "The impact of remittances on food insecurity: Evidence from Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    20. P. Marcos-Garcia & M. Pulido-Velazquez & C. Sanchis-Ibor & M. García-Mollá & M. Ortega-Reig & A. Garcia-Prats & C. Girard, 2023. "From local knowledge to decision making in climate change adaptation at basin scale. Application to the Jucar River Basin, Spain," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(4), pages 1-23, April.

    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:spr:apjors:v:7:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s41685-022-00273-4. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.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.