Household Livelihood Vulnerability to Climate Change in West China

Abstract

Climate change disproportionately affects natural resource-dependent communities in the ecologically vulnerable regions of western China. This study used the household livelihood vulnerability index under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (HLV-IPCC) to assess vulnerability. Data were collected from 823 households in Ningxia, Gansu, Guangxi, and Yunnan provinces, these being ecologically vulnerable regions in China. With a composite HLVI-IPCC and multiple regression model, the factors that affect households’ adaptive capability to HLVI-IPCC was estimated. Results indicate that Ningxia is the most vulnerable community, while Guangxi is the least vulnerable community across all indices. Moreover, Gansu has the heaviest sensitivity and exposure to climate change, whereas Ningxia has the highest adaptive capability to climate change. In addition, the age of household head and distance of the home to the town center had significant negative impacts on households’ adaptive capacity to HLVI-IPCC. The results also suggest that the HLVI assessment can provide an effective tool for local authorities to formulate prioritizing strategies with promoting climate-resilient development and increasing long-term adaptive capacity.

Enhancing the Resilience and Adaptive Capacity of Smallholder Farmers to Drought in the Limpopo Province, South Africa

“…These interlinkages between climate change, water, and food insecurity bring to the fore the need to adopt transformative and integrated approaches to address contemporary challenges that crosscut all sectors. Several studies that focus on South Africa have analyzed household vulnerability but have neglected to examine the dimensions of household vulnerability [6][7][8]. Consequently, due to climate change, the emergency response starts at the local level, which means determining who is likely to be affected and which households should be considered [8].…”

Vulnerability of household livelihoods to climate variability and change in the central rift valley sub-basin of Ethiopia

“…Furthermore, they can help to inform decision-making about when to harvest and store crops. Likewise, [ [26] , [43] , [44] ], claimed that having access to local early warning systems might aid farmers in making more informed decisions, reducing their risks, and boosting their responsiveness.…”

Integrated rural socio-economic vulnerability analysis in Lampung Province

“…Previous studies of rural vulnerability have been more partial, such as by Fang et al ( 2018), Yang et al (2021), andShen et al (2022). They saw a negative correlation between shocks to livelihoods.…”

“…De Silva & Kawasaki (2018) examines rural vulnerability due to climate change and its impacts on the agricultural sector. Likewise, many studies link the occurrence of natural disasters and the higher susceptibility of rural areas (Fang et al, 2018;Shen et al, 2022;Qazlbash et al, 2021). On the other hand, Abubakar (2021) studied the causes of vulnerability due to disease factors due to people's unhealthy way of life in the water areas.…”