17. Household Level Vulnerability to Climate Change in Nepal – A Comparison of a Semi-urban and a Rural Village Development Committee

Abstract

Climate change-related events have emerged in recent years in Nepal. The effects of climate change are particularly adverse for sectors like agriculture and water management, which are dependent on climatic variables. Subsistence farmers in developing countries like Nepal, where agriculture is mainly rain-fed, and who have very few resources, and have weak adaptive capacity, and may be unable to cope with changing climatic conditions. These factors increase farmers' vulnerability to climate change. Local level vulnerability assessment is very important to formulate suitable policy measures to address their livelihood. Household level vulnerability to climate change depends on different factors, so there is still uncertainty in methodology to measure vulnerability. However, this research has adopted the concept of integrated vulnerability assessment and the indicator method to analyze the vulnerability of farmers of semi-urban areas-Pragatinagar Village Development Committee (VDC) of Nawalparasi, and rural areas - Kagbeni VDC of Mustang districts of Nepal utilizing the data collected from 155 households and VDC profiles from these 2 VDCs. Different socioeconomic and biophysical factors were collected and classified into three classes (exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity). Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to prioritize the indicators. Household analysis of vulnerability indicated that poor households are vulnerable anywhere due to low adaptive capacity, regardless of where they are located. Policy measures should focus on improving the adaptive capacity of rural households.