Assessment of socio-economic and livelihood vulnerabilities and disaster risks: a study of landslide affected areas of North and West Sikkim
Student name: Ms Shreya Trivedi
Guide: Dr Chubamenla Jamir
Year of completion: 2015
Host Organisation: The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Ms Suruchi Bhadwal
Abstract: The report is based upon the qualitative assessment of socio-economic and bio-physical vulnerabilities in the upper Teesta basin with the main focus upon North and West Sikkim. In order to assess the vulnerabilities in the study areas, it is important to understand the perception of the people and the problems and issues faced by them either due to climatic variability or non-climatic (politico-ecological) reasons. At the same time, it is very important to study the adaptive capacities of the people as well as the active local institutes playing an important role in increasing the resilience among the people. This study was motivated by the vulnerability assessment studies for mountain communities conducted by ICIMOD in Hindukush-Himalayan Region.The report emphasizes upon the study of livelihood vulnerabilities carried out for West and North Sikkim where the Pressure and Release Model(PAR) is tested for assessing the socio-economic, political and climatic related vulnerabilities impacting livelihoods.This method helped in identifying how livelihood options such as Agriculture, Fisheries and Sheep herding becomevulnerabledue to various social, governance and climatic drivers and how this vulnerability progresses to become a disaster when a natural hazard mainly landslides occurs. In North Sikkim, PAR framework is tested for assessing the same impact on livelihoods in the presence of landslides. This model yielded two different results for the same study conducted in two districts of Sikkim. It was found that vulnerable livelihoods become more prone to risks during a landslide event in West Sikkim while in North Sikkim, the same study showed that how newly emerged livelihood patterns remain less vulnerable and increase landslide probability in the surrounding areas. ArcGIS is used for preparing maps for locating areas which are landslide prone in North and West Sikkim. In this case, the triggering forces for landslides are taken to be the natural causes and hydroelectric power plantsin proximity to the North Sikkim. This helps in studying the deeply rooted causes of landslides apart from the direct natural causes.
In the end, the report also gives the brief idea about the adaption measures which should be undertaken in order to reduce the landslide incidents.
Keywords:Livelihood vulnerability ·Vulnerability assessment · Pressure and Release Model · Landslide mapping · Adaptation strategies
