Is rainfall gradient a factor of livelihood diversification? Empirical evidence from around climatic hotspots in Indo-Gangetic Plains

Gopal Datt Bhatta (), Pramod Kumar Aggarwal (), Amit Kumar Shrivastava () and Lindsay Sproule ()
Additional contact information
Gopal Datt Bhatta: International Water Management Institute (IWMI), New Delhi Office
Pramod Kumar Aggarwal: International Water Management Institute (IWMI), New Delhi Office
Amit Kumar Shrivastava: International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
Lindsay Sproule: The City of Calgary

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2016, vol. 18, issue 6, No 8, 1657-1678

Abstract: Abstract Farmers in the Indo-Gangetic Plains are constantly seeking ways to adapt to changing circumstances and opportunities that include new technologies, institutions, policies, socio-economic and cultural shifts, as well as a changing climate. The relationship between rainfall and local livelihoods is important to devise policies to improve adaptive capacity of farmers to different drivers of changes. The present study investigates whether the spatial variations in rainfall have prompted the location-specific livelihood diversification by using data from 2660 farm families in the climatic risk areas in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. The results show a higher on-farm livelihood diversification in the areas with high rainfall (1500–2100 mm) compared to medium (900–1500 mm) and very high rainfall regimes (>2100 mm). Based on this study, the optimal range of rainfall for better agricultural livelihood in the context of changing environmental circumstances is from 1500 to 2100 mm. In terms of farm practices changed (proxy of adaptability), farmers responded more frequently to the market-related drivers than climatic stressors. Farmers in climate vulnerable areas (Bihar and coastal Bangladesh for instance) responded more to climatic stressors than those living in relatively less vulnerable areas (Terai for instance). The results imply that livelihood strategies should be tailor-made along the climatic resources such as rainfall, considering other biophysical and socio-economic variations at the spatial scale. Identifying household and farm-level coping strategies along the rainfall gradient can also be useful in targeting interventions to build resilience to shocks.

Keywords: Climatic factors; Non-climatic factors; Coping strategies; Farming practices; On-farm sources of livelihood (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-015-9710-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:endesu:v:18:y:2016:i:6:d:10.1007_s10668-015-9710-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10668

DOI: 10.1007/s10668-015-9710-6

Access Statistics for this article

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development is currently edited by Luc Hens

More articles in Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().