Vulnerability assessment of rural households to climate change using livelihood vulnerability framework approach in the trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh, India

IF 3.3 2区地球科学 Q2 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Anthropocene Pub Date : 2025-02-21 DOI:10.1016/j.ancene.2025.100467

Padma Namgyal , Shyamal Sarkar , Ramesh Kumar

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Abstract

This study examines the vulnerability of rural households to climate change impacts in the Trans-Himalayan region of Leh district, India, using the IPCC livelihood vulnerability framework and a composite index approach. A total of 464 households across 12 villages were surveyed, with sampling based on village size and geographic location. The study aimed to assess how rural communities are coping with climate-related challenges such as flash floods, water shortages, and extreme weather events. The overall vulnerability index of rural households was 0.445, on a scale from 0 (least vulnerable) to 1 (most vulnerable). The exposure index was high at 0.784, indicating that households are highly exposed to climate change impacts. The adaptive capacity was lower at 0.360, and the sensitivity index was 0.220, suggesting that while exposure to climate risks is significant, the communities have limited ability to adapt. This study analyses the spatially distributed vulnerability to climate change within rural households located in the Ladakh region in India, over the Trans-Himalayan landscapes. The proposed research approach involving the integration of the IPCC framework on livelihood vulnerabilities with spatial mappings could lead toward actionable insights and geographic disparities for vulnerability. Adaptation strategies based on the observed findings can better inform policymaking as the needs for increasing resilience grow more demanding in these scarce resource regions in high altitudes.

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来源期刊

Anthropocene Earth and Planetary Sciences-Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous)

CiteScore

6.30

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

102 days

期刊介绍： Anthropocene is an interdisciplinary journal that publishes peer-reviewed works addressing the nature, scale, and extent of interactions that people have with Earth processes and systems. The scope of the journal includes the significance of human activities in altering Earth’s landscapes, oceans, the atmosphere, cryosphere, and ecosystems over a range of time and space scales - from global phenomena over geologic eras to single isolated events - including the linkages, couplings, and feedbacks among physical, chemical, and biological components of Earth systems. The journal also addresses how such alterations can have profound effects on, and implications for, human society. As the scale and pace of human interactions with Earth systems have intensified in recent decades, understanding human-induced alterations in the past and present is critical to our ability to anticipate, mitigate, and adapt to changes in the future. The journal aims to provide a venue to focus research findings, discussions, and debates toward advancing predictive understanding of human interactions with Earth systems - one of the grand challenges of our time.