Revisiting adaptations for climate resilient livelihoods
Student name: Mr Sushil Rajagopalan
Guide: Dr Chubamenla Jamir
Year of completion: 2014
Host Organisation: Institute of Rural Management Anand
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Promod K Singh
Abstract: There is sufficient evidence today that anthropogenic climate change is affecting livelihoods
of millions of rural poor around the world and is further expected to exacerbate as the time
progresses if sufficient actions are not taken. There is an urgent need to look at strategies that
will enhance human and ecosystem resilience not just for the present but also for the future.
Yet, little efforts go into building long term resilience as intricate nature of the problem
increase adaptation constrains making it difficult for policy makers to plan in advance against
expected climate change. We argue that the delay in response will augment adaptation deficit
within the communities and necessity to have planned proactive adaptation to protect,
transform and transition communities in climate resilient development. In our study, we have
looked at the impacts and perturbations of climate variability and change on livelihood
system of agro-pastoralist communities in Bundi and assessed the adaption strategies
deployed by the communities for its effectiveness in higher climate regime through Fuzzy
Cognitive Mapping approach. Our analysis suggests that present livelihood system is highly
affected as a result of ongoing climate variability and change and will further decline in light
of higher climate exposure. The adaptation practices followed by the communities will fall
short in providing resilience to the communities in future. This method will help in devising
framework for local level vulnerability assessment while giving indicators to policy for
evidence based decision making.
Keywords: Vulnerability, proactive adaptations, climate resilient livelihoods, fuzzy cognitive
mapping, scenario analysis.
