Abstract:
Climate change has emerged as the major greatest challenge to sustainable
development worldwide, and its massive, global impact threatens the poorest and
most vulnerable tremendously. Extreme heat is one of them, the risk to human
health and wellbeing as well as to infrastructure and services. In India, over the
past few decades, there has been a rise in extreme heatwave days and heat
mortality rates.
In rural areas, farmers & marginal labours are more exposed to heat and
heatwaves, a large number of the population obtain their living from outdoor
farming which implies that increases in outdoor heat can have significant effects
on the livelihood. The people who are largely reliant on outdoor farming need to
improve their adaptive captative in terms of their livelihood pattern so that they can
be more heat resilient. The present research examines vulnerability and assessing
the impact of heat stress on rural communities in the Jhansi district in the Uttar
Pradesh state of India. The total area of the district is 5024 sq. Km. Heat stress
puts additional strain on natural resources which affects farmers livelihood in the
area.
The district has 8 community development blocks, where hotspot areas are
identified by analysis of temporal changes in average land surface temperature
(LST), variations in rainfall pattern and changes in vegetation over the period of
time by Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), its impacts on land use
land cover (LULC) in the region. There has been an increase in built-up area by
46% and agricultural plantation over the last ten years. It is also observed that the
trend of rising in average land surface temperature from 2000 to 2018 is about 1.71
C. Two blocks are selected one which has the highest vulnerability of heat stress
– Babina other lower vulnerability – Moth block. Furthermore, analysis is done on
Babina block, temporal changes in water bodies and land use land cover pattern.
The purpose of this study to assess livelihood vulnerability to heat stress based on
the IPCC- Livelihood Vulnerability Index (IPCC-LVI) based on 31 sub-indicators of
environment, through IPCC-identified components: exposure, sensitivity and
adaptive capacity, capturing inter-connected interactions based on people
perception within two selected blocks. Under this study quantitative framework, based on district and block-level
secondary data and qualitative data by primary surveys with a sample size of 78
households and 15 focus groups discussions which has been collected. All
occupation workers are covered in the primary survey like Farming, agricultural
labour, non-agricultural labour, MGNRES labours. Babina block is more vulnerable
than Moth, factors that make is exposure to climate change high temperature, less
rainfall, working outdoor and roofing materials. From the primary survey, people
living in houses with tin roofs are more uncomfortable as compared to cement roof
houses. Existing coping mechanism seems insufficient for preventing people from
outdoor and indoor heat stress. People from poorer household have also found
socio-economic and livelihood challenges when they adopt coping strategies.
The study reviews the existing policies and schemes at the central, state and
district level for various sectors to resolve the prevailing issues. As heat action plan
is an intervention by the government of India but there is a lack of accountability
and there is no integration of land use map in the identification of vulnerable
population and heat-health risks zones. Global issues such as climate change and
increasing heat stress were not considered as concerns at the local level for
addressing vulnerable areas. Diminishing green cover in the district was not
discussed either. Rising heat stress was not included in the building bylaws either,
keeping in mind the future implication of the same at rural areas.
Theses finding will help to propose developing strategies for vulnerable sections of
the society and minimize the adverse impact of heat stress on livelihood in the
region. Sustainable agriculture practices make agriculture more productive,
sustainable, remunerative and climate-resilient by promoting location specific
Integrated /Composite Farming Systems. The use of land resources planning,
including soils, water, animals and plants, for the production of goods to meet
changing human needs, while simultaneously ensuring the long-term productive
potential of these resources and the maintenance of their environmental functions.
Housing designs should be improved to promote sufficient ventilation and to reduce
the adverse effects of tin roofs.