Building climate change resilience in mountains: evidence from Bhutan, Guatemala, Nepal, Peru and Tanzania
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•1,249 views
This presentation by Dr Koko Warner shows focuses on 3 main points: 1. Evidence of climate change-related loss and damage when people face constraints and limits to adaptation and empirical results from Bhutan and Nepal 2. Rainfall variability, food and livelihood security and migration: “Where the Rain Falls” (Rainfalls) Project and empirical results from Guatemala, Peru and Tanzania 3. Conclusions and reflections for policymakers
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Viewers also liked
Viewers also liked (20)
Similar to Building climate change resilience in mountains: evidence from Bhutan, Guatemala, Nepal, Peru and Tanzania
Similar to Building climate change resilience in mountains: evidence from Bhutan, Guatemala, Nepal, Peru and Tanzania (20)
More from CIFOR-ICRAF
More from CIFOR-ICRAF (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Building climate change resilience in mountains: evidence from Bhutan, Guatemala, Nepal, Peru and Tanzania
- 1. UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS)
- 2. Building climate change resilience in mountains: evidence from Bhutan, Guatemala, Nepal, Peru and Tanzania Dr. Koko Warner Section Head Environmental Migration, Social Resilience, and Adaptation (EMSVA) United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) warner@ehs.unu.edu www.ehs.unu.edu Building Climate Change Resilience in Mountains - Global Landscapes Forum session Warsaw, Saturday 16 November 2013
- 3. Presentation outline 1. Evidence of climate change-related loss and damage when people face constraints and limits to adaptation and empirical results from Bhutan and Nepal 2. Rainfall variability, food and livelihood security and migration: “Where the Rain Falls” (Rainfalls) Project and empirical results from Guatemala, Peru and Tanzania 3. Conclusions and reflections for policymakers
- 5. Loss and damage results in Bhutan The costs of adaptation in Punakha District Climatic stressor: Changing monsoon patterns: Less rainfall and later onset Impact on livelihoods: Reduced water availability for rice cultivation: impact on food security and income Adaptation: Adjustments to irrigation practices and access to water, changes in crop mix, from two to one harvest a year, buying pumps Loss and Damage: For 87% of survey respondents, the measures are not enough and/or entail extra costs that could not be regained
- 6. Loss and damage results in Nepal Preventive and coping measures not enough to avoid loss and damage from flooding in Udayapur District Climatic stressor: Increasingly severe flood events Impact on livelihoods: Crops washed away, damage to houses and properties, high food prices in the aftermath of floods Coping / adaptation: Pro-active and reactive; individual and collective. Examples: construction of physical barriers; livelihood diversification; sale of assets to buy food. Loss and Damage: For 77% of survey respondents, the measures were not enough; Main adaptation constraint; lack of financial resources Much time and efforts spent on adaptation measures
- 7. Where the Rain Falls: Rainfall Variability, Food and Livelihood Security, and Migration CAR
- 8. Results of case studies in mountains Research site Main Findings Guatemala Western Highlands (Cabricán Municipality) • Populations risk becoming trapped : • Profitability of the main livelihood diversification opportunity (weaving) is decreasing • Migration to the US (main migration destination) is becoming too expensive and risky • Labour demand in the Southern Coastline (second main migration destination) is decreasing Northern Tanzania (Same District, Kilimanjaro Region) • Altitude matters: • Human mobility less in highlands (higher precipitation and remoteness) as compared to lowlands (dryer and closeness to cities). • Other intervening factors affecting human mobility along different altitudes (profession, age, gender, education) The key to climate change resilience in mountains is access to livelihood diversification opportunities (both in situ and through migration)
- 9. Results of case studies in mountains Research site Main Findings Peru Central Highlands (Huancayo Province) • Altitude and access to urban economic opportunities shape livelihood options and migration strategies (daily mobility to nearby city of Huancayo at lower altitude, long-term migration at higher altitude) • Even in complex rural-urban livelihoods systems, climatic and environmental conditions are still relevant for household resilience The key to climate change resilience in mountains is access to livelihood diversification opportunities (both in situ and through migration)
- 10. Glacier recession and “peak water“ in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru
- 11. Basin level versus sub-catchment level (Bury et al. 2012)
- 12. Nearly 100% of randomly sampled households in the valley reported glacier recession, changing precipitation patterns, and drying and disappearing water sources (Bury 2011). 1982 1987 1997 *Switch from glacier-fed to rainfed agriculture 2004
- 13. Different demographic structure in phase 4 watersheds
Editor's Notes
- Up to present, research relating environmental change to human mobility has found out that environmental factors can play a role in migration without being conclusive. Further, in the context of climate change, scholarly literature on migration ranges across a host of climatic stressors and geographies, making it difficult to date to solve the debate whether migration is a form of adaptation or an indicator of limits to adaptation. To address both of these debates, original research was undertaken to answer the question “under what circumstances do households use migration as a risk management strategy when facing rainfall variability and food insecurity?”. This research administered a household survey (n=1300) and participatory research (n = 2000 respondents) in districts in 8 countries (Guatemala, Peru, Ghana, Tanzania, Bangladesh, India, Thailand and Vietnam). The findings reveal that the answer to how climatic stressors affect migration decisions and the degree to which migration improves the adaptive capacity of those households lie in the vulnerability of the household and its sensitivity to climatic factors. In most districts surveyed, respondents were poor and often land scarce, and most used migration in one form or another. The data reveal for the first time in a comparable global study distinct household profiles of “resilience”—those households in which migration is one of a variety of adaptation measures that progressively reduce the climate-sensitivity of those households—and “vulnerability”—those households in which migration is part of a spectrum of erosive coping strategies and in which sensitivity to climatic stressors is maintained or exacerbated. The paper relates these profiles to an agent based modeling approach applied in the Tanzania case to explore under what scenarios rainfall variability and food security have the potential to become significant drivers of human mobility in particular regions of the world in the next two to three decades.
- Within the eight countries where the project’s research was conducted, there was also considerable diversity in the specific sites selected. An important criterion for site selection was related to the independent variable of the study, namely rainfall. Average annual rainfall across the research sites ranged from 560 mm to 1700 mm (see Table 2). The seasonality of rainfall patterns and dependence on rain-fed agriculture were important considerations, even though in the case of India the communities largely had access to canal irrigation. Characteristics related to other important variables of the research were the sensitivity of local livelihoods to changing rainfall patterns, high levels of poverty and food insecurity, recorded history of migration, and a purported linkage between changing rainfall patterns, food insecurity and human mobility. Elevation (e.g., low and highlands) and the proximity to cities or other centres (e.g., industrial estates) with significant alternative employment opportunities also played a role in site selection.The research in Guatemala, Peru and Thailand was conducted in upland sites; while the site in Guatemala was quite remote from major urban centres, the Peru site was distinguished by its proximity to a large and growing secondary city. Lowland sites included Ghana, India, Bangladesh, and Vietnam, while the research villages in Tanzania included sites in both lowland and upland areas. Access to irrigation ranged from almost zero in the sites in Guatemala and Ghana, to 84 per cent in India; nonetheless, most farmers in all three sites were limited to a single annual harvest. Two or more harvests per year were most common in the Bangladesh, Thailand, and Vietnam cases, where higher local rainfall and proximity to rivers result in increased water availability for agriculture. In Tanzania, although the site is semi-arid, the local rainfall pattern is bi-modal; thus two harvests per year are possible when the rains do not fail.
- -> Households profiles The research has provided for four distinct household profiles using migration as a risk management strategy. These profiles represent a spectrum with households within a profile being closer to one or the other of the profiles on either side. They are thus are not mutually exclusive and serve as a point of departure for further research to refine key explanatory variables. Households that use migration to improve their resilienceThe households use migration in ways which improve their resilience, such as investing in Education, health, and climate-resilient livelihood opportunities. These households use migration as one of a variety of adaptation strategies, moving seasonally or temporally, often to non-agricultural jobs in cities or internationally.Households that use migration to survive, but not flourishThe second group is often in countries with less food security and fewer options for diversifying livelihoods. These households use migration to survive, but not flourish. They move seasonally in their countries to find work, often as agricultural labour in other rural areas.Households that use migration as a last resort and erosive coping strategy: The third group is found where food security is even more tenuous and where adaptation options are fewer or not pursued vigorously. These households se migration as a matter of human security in what can be seen as an erosive coping strategy. This group often moves during the hunger season to other rural areas in their regions in search of food, or work to buy food for their families. Households that cannot use migration and are struggling to survive in their areas of originThe final group appear to be “trapped populations” that struggle to survive in their areas of origin and cannot easily use migration to adapt to the negative impacts of rainfall stressors.