Vulnerability of agro-ecological zones in India under the earth system climate model scenarios

India being a developing economy dependent on climate-sensitive sector like agriculture is highly vulnerable to impacts of global climate change. Vulnerability to climate change, however, differs spatially within the country owing to regional differences in exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. The study uses the Hadley Centre Global Environment Model version 2-Earth System (HadGEM-ES) climate projections to assess the dynamics in vulnerability across four climate change exposure scenarios developed using Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). The analysis was carried out at subnational (district) level; the results were interpreted and reported for their corresponding agro-ecological zones. Vulnerability of each district was quantified using indicators capturing climatic variability, ecological and demographic sensitivity, and socio-economic capacity. Our analysis further assigns probabilities to vulnerability classes of all the 579 districts falling under different agro-ecological zones. The results of the vulnerability profile show that Western plains, Northern plains, and central highlands of the arid and semi-arid agro-ecological zones are the most vulnerable regions in the current scenario (1950–2000). In the future scenario (2050), it extends along districts falling within Deccan plateau and Central (Malwa) highlands, lying in the arid and semi-arid zones, along with regions vulnerable in the current scenario, recording the highest vulnerability score across all exposure scenarios. These regions exhibit highest degree of variation in climatic parameters, ecological fragility, socio-economic marginality, and limited accessibility to resources, generating conditions of high vulnerability. The study emphasizes on the priority to take up adaptive management actions in the identified vulnerable districts to not only reduce risks of climate change, but also enhance their inherent capacity to withstand any future changes in climate. It provides a systematic approach to explicitly identify vulnerable regions, where regional planners and policy makers can build on existing adaptation decision-making by utilizing an interdisciplinary approach in the context of global change scenario.

[1]  R. Pielke.  Climate vulnerability : understanding and addressing threats to essential resources , 2013 .

[2]  Adjie Pamungkas,et al.  Vulnerability Modelling to Improve Assessment Process on Community Vulnerability , 2014 .

[3]  Andy Jarvis,et al.  Empirical approaches for assessing impacts of climate change on agriculture: The EcoCrop model and a case study with grain sorghum , 2013 .

[4]  P. Aggarwal,et al.  Simulating impacts, potential adaptation and vulnerability of maize to climate change in India , 2010 .

[5]  Richard J. T. Klein,et al.  Climate change, adaptive capacity and development , 2003 .

[6]  W. Adger,et al.  The determinants of vulnerability and adaptive capacity at the national level and the implications f , 2005 .

[7]  Coleen Vogel,et al.  Vulnerability and global environmental change : rhetoric and reality , 2004 .

[8]  G. Meehl,et al.  More Intense, More Frequent, and Longer Lasting Heat Waves in the 21st Century , 2004, Science.

[9]  Chang‐Hoi Ho,et al.  Projected climate regime shift under future global warming from multi-model, multi-scenario CMIP5 simulations , 2014 .

[10]  Pramod Kumar,et al.  Mapping agricultural vulnerability of Tamil Nadu, India to climate change: a dynamic approach to take forward the vulnerability assessment methodology , 2015, Climatic Change.

[11]  J. Hinkel.  “Indicators of vulnerability and adaptive capacity”: Towards a clarification of the science–policy interface , 2011 .

[12]  N. Jain,et al.  Vulnerability of Agriculture to Climate Change: District Level Assessment in the Indo-Gangetic Plains , 2013 .

[13]  B. Bhatt,et al.  Impact of climate change on wheat and winter maize over a sub-humid climatic environment , 2013 .

[14]  P. Aggarwal,et al.  Vulnerability of wheat production to climate change in India , 2014 .

[15]  Carlos Guedes Soares,et al.  Methods and Tools , 2009 .

[16]  Jacqueline de Chazal,et al.  Climate change 2007 : impacts, adaptation and vulnerability : Working Group II contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , 2014 .

[17]  Pawan Kumar Joshi,et al.  Mapping disaster vulnerability in India using analytical hierarchy process , 2016 .

[18]  G. A. Gbetibouo,et al.  Measuring the economic impact of climate change on major South African field crops: a Ricardian approach , 2005 .

[19]  Merylyn McKenzie Hedger,et al.  Bridging the gap: empowering decision-making for adaptation through the UK Climate Impacts Programme , 2006 .

[20]  B. Laxman,et al.  Geospatial analysis of agricultural drought vulnerability using a composite index based on exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity , 2015 .

[21]  N. Jodha,et al.  Enhancing Farmers’ Adaptation to Climate Change in Arid and Semi-Arid Agriculture of India: Evidences from Indigenous practices: Developing International Public Goods from Development-oriented Projects.Working Paper Series no. 32. , 2012 .

[22]  N. H. Ravindranath,et al.  Farmers’ vulnerability to climate variability in Dimapur district of Nagaland, India , 2013, Regional Environmental Change.

[23]  M. Z. Hussain,et al.  Climate Change, Climate Variability and Indian Agriculture: Impacts Vulnerability and Adaptation Strategies , 2009 .

[24]  R. S. Sengar,et al.  Impact of climate change on Indian agriculture , 2014 .

[25]  E. Malone,et al.  Modeling Vulnerability and Resilience to Climate Change: A Case Study of India and Indian States , 2005 .

[26]  Thomas Glade,et al.  Conceptual Frameworks of Vulnerability Assessments for Natural Disasters Reduction , 2013 .

[27]  A. Dai.  Increasing drought under global warming in observations and models , 2013 .

[28]  Q. Fu,et al.  Expansion of global drylands under a warming climate , 2013 .

[29]  Anand Patwardhan,et al.  Assessing vulnerability for climate adaptation , 2005 .

[30]  Nebojsa Nakicenovic,et al.  Developing and applying scenarios , 2001 .

[31]  S. M. Vidwans.  A Method of Classifying Regions from Multivariate Data , 1983 .

[32]  J. Quiggin.  Uncertainty and Climate Change Policy , 2008 .

[33]  A. S. Faroda.  Agro-Ecological Zones Of North-Western Hot Arid Region Of India , 1999 .

[34]  Suraje Dessai,et al.  On the role of climate scenarios for adaptation planning , 2005 .

[35]  Rajiv Pandey,et al.  Climate vulnerability index - measure of climate change vulnerability to communities: a case of rural Lower Himalaya, India , 2012, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change.

[37]  J. Palutikof,et al.  Climate change 2007 : impacts, adaptation and vulnerability , 2001 .

[38]  J. Houghton,et al.  Climate change 2001 : the scientific basis , 2001 .

[39]  K. Emanuel.  Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years , 2005, Nature.

[40]  S. Shinde,et al.  Vulnerability of Indian Agriculture to Climate Change , 2013 .

[41]  John F. B. Mitchell,et al.  The next generation of scenarios for climate change research and assessment , 2010, Nature.

[42]  R. Westaway,et al.  Putting vulnerability to climate change on the map: a review of approaches, benefits, and risks , 2011 .

[43]  Swaroopa Rani,et al.  An assessment of regional vulnerability of rice to climate change in India , 2013, Climatic Change.

[44]  G. Fischer,et al.  Socio-economic and climate change impacts on agriculture: an integrated assessment, 1990–2080 , 2005, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[45]  D. Lobell,et al.  A method for quantifying vulnerability, applied to the agricultural system of the Yaqui Valley, Mexico , 2003 .

[46]  T. Maraseni,et al.  Vulnerability of Himalayan transhumant communities to climate change , 2014, Climatic Change.

[47]  Chris R. Dickman,et al.  Extreme climatic events shape arid and semiarid ecosystems , 2006 .

[48]  S. K. Dash,et al.  Some evidence of climate change in twentieth-century India , 2007 .

[49]  Raymond Guiteras,et al.  The Impact of Climate Change on Indian Agriculture , 2008 .

[50]  Fahad Saeed,et al.  Downscaled climate change projections with uncertainty assessment over India using a high resolution multi-model approach. , 2013, The Science of the total environment.

[51]  Stephen H. Schneider,et al.  Climate change policy : a survey , 2003 .

[52]  Thomas J. Wilbanks,et al.  Making the Global Local Responding to Climate Change Concerns from the Ground , 2003 .

[53]  M. Parrya,et al.  Effects of climate change on global food production under SRES emissions and socio-economic scenarios , 2004 .

[54]  Lynn P. Nygaard,et al.  Mapping vulnerability to multiple stressors: climate change and globalization in India , 2004 .

[55]  S. Schiavon,et al.  Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. , 2007 .

[56]  H. Velthuizen,et al.  Climate Change and Agricultural Vulnerability , 2002 .

[57]  H. L. Miller,et al.  Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis , 2007 .

[58]  J. Parikh,et al.  Indian agriculture and climate sensitivity , 2001 .

[59]  M. L. Arrawatia,et al.  Rapid, cost-effective and high resolution assessment of climate-related vulnerability of rural communities of Sikkim Himalaya, India , 2011 .

[60]  G. Fischer,et al.  Effects of climate change on global food production under SRES emissions and socio-economic scenarios , 2004 .

[61]  Hans-Martin Füssel,et al.  Vulnerability: A generally applicable conceptual framework for climate change research , 2007 .

[62]  B. Smit,et al.  From Adaptation to Adaptive Capacity and Vulnerability Reduction , 2003 .

[63]  R. Betts,et al.  Climate and land use change impacts on global terrestrial ecosystems and river flows in the HadGEM2-ES Earth system model using the representative concentration pathways , 2013 .

[64]  A. Thomson,et al.  The representative concentration pathways: an overview , 2011 .

[65]  T. Carter,et al.  IPCC technical guidelines for assessing climate change impacts and adaptations : part of the IPCC special report to the first session of the conference of the parties to the UN framework convention on climate change , 1994 .

[66]  C. Bantilan,et al.  Vulnerability and policy relevance to drought in the semi-arid tropics of Asia – A retrospective analysis , 2014 .

[67]  N. Sahu,et al.  Impact of climate change on agricultural production of Odisha (India): a Ricardian analysis , 2016, Regional Environmental Change.

[68]  R. Doherty,et al.  Conceptual elements of climate change vulnerability assessments: a review , 2012 .

[69]  N. H. Ravindranath,et al.  Multi-model climate change projections for India under representative concentration pathways , 2012 .

[70]  N. H. Ravindranath,et al.  Climate Change Vulnerability Profiles For North East India , 2011 .

[71]  L. S. Rathore,et al.  Impact of Climate Change on Indian Agriculture: A Review , 2006 .

[72]  Richard J. T. Klein,et al.  Towards a Formal Framework of Vulnerability to Climate Change , 2009 .

[73]  J. L. Parra,et al.  Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas , 2005 .

[74]  Anne M. Riederer,et al.  The Livelihood Vulnerability Index: A pragmatic approach to assessing risks from climate variability and change—A case study in Mozambique , 2009 .

[75]  J. Soussana,et al.  Adapting agriculture to climate change , 2007, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[76]  Corinne Le Quéré,et al.  Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis , 2013 .

[77]  S. Kanae,et al.  Global flood risk under climate change , 2013 .

[78]  J. Weyant,et al.  Vulnerability to climate change and reasons for concern: a synthesis , 2001 .

[79]  Daniel Hillel,et al.  Climate Change and the Global Harvest: Potential Impacts of the Greenhouse Effect on Agriculture , 1998 .

[80]  Roger Jones,et al.  Climate scenario development , 2001 .

[81]  John Posey,et al.  The determinants of vulnerability and adaptive capacity at the municipal level: Evidence from floodplain management programs in the United States , 2009 .

[82]  Frans Berkhout,et al.  Framing climate uncertainty: socio-economic and climate scenarios in vulnerability and adaptation assessments , 2013, Regional Environmental Change.

[83]  R. Moss,et al.  Climate change 1995 - impacts, adaptations and mitigation of climate change : scientific-technical analyses , 1997 .

[84]  David R. Lee,et al.  Climate Change: Impact on Agriculture and Costs of Adaptation , 2009 .

[85]  Research Note: Analysis of Vulnerability Indices in Various Agro-Climatic Zones of Gujarat , 2013 .

[86]  Martijn Gough.  Climate change , 2009, Canadian Medical Association Journal.

[87]  Carsten Walther,et al.  Categorisation of typical vulnerability patterns in global drylands , 2011 .