Climate change, hydro-meteorological hazards and adaptation for sustainable livelihood in Chitral Pakistan

Abstract

This study contributes to the knowledge in the area pertaining to the Disaster Risk Reduction under overall domain of adaptation to climate change. Understanding occurrence and impacts of hydrometeorological disasters on people's well-being and which livelihood assets are significant for identifying coping strategies to deal with disasters are important ingredients to increased resilience of communities living in disaster prone areas. This study relies on the data collected using the Community-based Risk Screening Tool - Adaptation and Livelihoods (Cristal) to map major risks and vulnerabilities along with coping strategies then ascertaining their relationship with community-based livelihoods assets. According to results, there are three frequent disaster risks in the study area which comprise avalanches, landslides and floods. These disasters inflict a heavy damage to the livelihood assets including crops, water, houses and other physical infrastructure. In order to overcome these losses, communities apply short-term coping strategies by spending limited means and hard-earned cash reserves. These unsustainable strategies further exacerbate vulnerabilities and give way to new ones. Taking empirical example of Chitral, the study recommends to formulate policies and encourage investment to substitute short term coping strategies with long term climate change adaptation measures in order to minimize impact of devastating disasters in future. There is a need for improved governance of irrigation water management, channel management and effective management techniques for on-farm water.