ICAR-Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, Karnal, 132001, Haryana, India.
School of Earth and Environment, Sustainability Research Institute, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.
Environ Manage. 2020 Nov;66(5):826-844. doi: 10.1007/s00267-020-01345-x. Epub 2020 Aug 13.
Micro-scale perspectives are seldom included in planned climate change adaptations, yet farmers' perceptions can provide useful insights into livelihood impacts from interactions between climatic and other stressors. This research aims to understand how climate variability and other stressors are impacting the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Azamgarh district, eastern Uttar Pradesh, India. Data from 84 smallholder farmers were collected using mixed qualitative and quantitative approaches, including interview and participatory methods, informed by multiple stressor and sustainable livelihood frameworks. Results revealed that farmers are increasingly facing problems caused by the reduced duration and number of rainy days, and erratic rainfall. Anomalies in seasonal cycles (longer summers, shorter winters) seem to have altered the local climate. Farmers reported that repeated drought impacts, even in years of moderate rainfall, are adversely affecting the rice crop, challenging the formal definition of drought. Climate variability, identified as the foremost stressor, often acts as a risk multiplier for ecological (e.g., soil sodicity), socio-economic (e.g., rising costs of cultivation) and political (e.g., mismatching policies and poor extension systems) stressors. In addition to climate stresses, resource-poor marginal groups in particular experienced higher risks resulting from changes in resource management regimes. This study provides an important cue to revisit the formal definitions of normal rainfall and drought, accommodating farmers' perceptions that evenly distributed rainfall, and not total rainfall is a key determinant of crop yields. Though India has developed adaptive measures for climate change and variability, integration of farmers' perceptions of climate and other stressors into such policies can improve the resilience of smallholder farmers, who have hitherto depended largely on autonomous adaptation strategies.
微观视角很少被纳入有计划的气候变化适应措施中，但农民的认知可以为理解气候和其他压力源相互作用对生计的影响提供有用的见解。本研究旨在了解印度北方邦东部阿扎姆加尔地区的小农如何受到气候变异性和其他压力源的影响。采用混合定性和定量方法（包括访谈和参与式方法），根据多压力源和可持续生计框架收集了 84 位小农的数据。结果表明，农民越来越多地面临降雨天数和降雨量减少以及降雨不稳定带来的问题。季节周期（夏季变长、冬季变短）的异常似乎改变了当地气候。农民报告说，即使在降雨量适中的年份，反复发生的干旱也在严重影响水稻作物，这对干旱的正式定义提出了挑战。被确定为首要压力源的气候变异性通常会对生态（例如土壤板结）、社会经济（例如种植成本上升）和政治（例如政策不匹配和不完善的推广系统）压力源产生风险乘数效应。除了气候压力外，资源匮乏的边缘群体由于资源管理制度的变化，面临更高的风险。本研究为重新审视正常降雨和干旱的正式定义提供了重要线索，考虑到农民的认知，即均匀分布的降雨而不是总降雨量是作物产量的关键决定因素。尽管印度已经制定了适应气候变化和变异性的措施，但将农民对气候和其他压力源的认知纳入这些政策中，可以提高小农的适应能力，因为他们迄今主要依赖自主适应战略。
