Climate resilience index for assessing resilience in homegardens

Abstract

Extreme climatic events such as droughts, floods, cyclones, and landslides have adversely affected a homegarden that consists of its inherited characteristics as a secondary forest along with alterations made by human. Households, as the major beneficiary of homegardens, have the responsibility to maintain the homegarden incorporating its structure and composition with functions of the household to make the homegarden resilient to adverse effects. To assess the current climate resilience level of a homegarden, data were collected through an in-depth survey from 435 homegardens in Hambantota, Jaffna, Matale, and Ratnapura districts in Sri Lanka. Climate Resilience Index (CRI) of homegarden was constructed based on absorptive and adaptive capacities using the 13 variables. The mean value of the CRI was 0.375 (± 0.005) which ranged from 0.019 to 0.616. As per the multiple regression analysis performed taking the CRI as the dependent variable, the constructed models were complex, and all the variables were required to determine the level of resilience of a homegarden. Based on the CRI values five categories of homegardens were identified as very low, low, moderate, high and very high resilient. Accordingly, key variables affecting the level of resilience of a homegarden were; application of soil and water conservation methods, requirement of soil conservation, presence of woody trees, above-ground biomass, number of canopy strata, experience in farming and technical knowledge on farming, species richness of tree were selected as resilient variables that indicate absorptive and adaptive capacities. The resilience level of a homegarden can be changed, by altering these variables together.

Graphical abstract