Abstract
It is generally acknowledged that poor people in the Global South are highly vulnerable due to global as well as regional climate changes. From the existing literatures, based on India, it is notice that often the studies regarding climate change impacts are model-based estimation of climate change vulnerability. However, these model-based approaches lack ground reality. Therefore, there is a need to explore the bottom-up effects of climate change on livelihoods generation in the rural part of India. Therefore, household-based primary field survey studies can help to overcome the uncertainties which exist in model-based climate vulnerability assessment. In India, so far no study has been conducted considering the regional climate vulnerability assessment based on primary households survey. Here, climate change induced socio-economic vulnerability index has been proposed and regional patterns of vulnerability has have been assess in thirteen Community Development Blocks (CD Block) in sub-Himalayan West Bengal. It comprises 384 household samples and twenty-two indicators covering six major dimensions of climate change vulnerability including climate variability, natural disaster risk, socio-demographic profile, livelihoods strategy, environmental profile, livelihoods insecurity, and accessibility of necessary infrastructure. The results suggest that the region where the temperature and rainfall instability is more the magnitude of climate change risk is also high. For instance, Alipurduar-II, Jalpaiguri, and Mal, which are highly exposed to climate variability and natural disaster risk, at the same time, have the low adaptive capacity. On the other hand, the livelihoods strategy, socio-demographic and environmental profile are the determining factors of regional vulnerability in the study region. The regions which have high adaptive capacity are less sensitive to climate change vulnerability, for example, Falakata, Dhupguri, and Rajgang; although the exposure of climate vulnerability are same in the entire region. Furthermore, survey findings indicate that adaptive capacity is high in Falakata and Rajganj, therefore, these blocks are less susceptible to climate change vulnerability. Finally, the overall findings of the present research would be helpful for policy makers to identify the priority region for suitable public schemes implementation and make sectors wise development strategy to tackle with the contemporary climate change vulnerabilities.
