Vulnerability of Agriculture to Climate Change in Chakwal District: Assessment of Farmers’ Adaptation Strategies
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VULNERABILITY OF AGRICULTURE TO CLIMATE CHANGE IN CHAKWAL DISTRICT: ASSESSMENT OF FARMERS’ ADAPTATION STRATEGIES SARAH AMIR Reg. No. 4-FBAS/PHDES/F13 Department of Environmental Science Faculty of Basic and Applied Sciences INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY ISLAMABAD 2020 VULNERABILITY OF AGRICULTURE TO CLIMATE CHANGE IN CHAKWAL DISTRICT: ASSESSMENT OF FARMERS’ ADAPTATION STRATEGIES A thesis submitted to the Department of Environmental Science, Faculty of Basic and Applied Sciences in fulfillment of the requirement for the award of degree of Doctor of Philosophy of International Islamic University, Islamabad. SARAH AMIR Registration No: 4/FBAS/PHDES/F13 Supervisor Dr. Muhammad Irfan Khan Professor Department of Environmental Science Co-supervisors Dr. Zafeer Saqib Dr. Muhammad Azeem Khan Assistant Professor Chairman Department of Environmental Science Pakistan Agricultural Research Council Spring 2020 Department of Environmental Science Faculty of Basic and Applied Sciences INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY ISLAMABAD DEDICATION I dedicate my work to my beloved parents, husband, children, family members, friends and respectable teachers for their unconditional support and love. ACCEPTANCE BY THE VIVA VOCE COMMITTEE Title of Thesis: Vulnerability of Agriculture to Climate Change in Chakwal District: Assessment of Farmers’ Adaptation Strategies Name of Student: Sarah Amir Registration No: 4/FBAS/PHDES/F13 Accepted by the Doctoral Research Committee of the Department of Environmental Science, Faculty of Basic and Applied Sciences, for the award of degree of Doctoral of Philosophy (PhD) of International Islamic University, Islamabad. VIVA VOCE COMMITTEE _______________________________ Dean ______________________________ Incharge, DES _______________________________ External Examiner ______________________________ Research Supervisor ______________________________ Co-Supervisor _____________________________ Co-Supervisor ______________________________ Internal Examiner DECLARATION I Sarah Amir, PhD scholar in the Department of Environmental Science enrolled under registration No. 4-FBAS/PHDES/F13, hereby declare that the knowledge contributed by analyses of data collected and results derived to draw conclusions presented in this thesis titled “Vulnerability of Agriculture to Climate Change in Chakwal District: Assessment of Farmers’ Adaptation Strategies” is my own original work and has not been submitted as research work or thesis in any form in any other university or institute in Pakistan or abroad for the award of any degree. The output from this thesis so far published/accepted are following three research papers in 2019 and 2020. Amir, S., Saqib, Z., Khan, M. I. Khan, M. A., Bokhari, S. A., Haq, Z. and Majid, A. (2020). Farmers’ perceptions and adaptation practices to climate change in rain- fed area. A case study from District Chakwal, Pakistan. Pak. J. Agri. Sci., 57(2): 465-475. Amir, S., Saqib, Z., Khan, A., Khan, M. I. Khan, M. A. and Majid, A. (2019). Land cover mapping and crop phenology of Potohar Region, Punjab Pakistan. Pak. J. Agri. Sci., 56(1): 187-196. Amir, S., Saqib, Z., Khan, M. I., Ali, A., Khan, M. A., Bokhari, S. A. and Haq, Z. (2020). Determinants of farmers’ adaptation to climate change in rain-fed agriculture of Pakistan. Arabian Journal of Geosciences (accepted for publication). Dated: 20-08-2020 _________________ Deponent Sarah Amir ABSTRACT With the dawn of 21st century, the world has witnessed the distressingly increasing effects of climate change on almost all sectors of society manifested by rising temperature, melting glaciers, intruding seas, erratic rainfall, frequent floods, cyclones and intermittent droughts. Both the global and national security paradigms are at great risk due to devastating impacts of climate-induced anomalies, if required measures to mitigate and adapt to such changes would not be taken both by developed and developing countries. Due to poor resource-base, technical and financial constraints, inadequate adaptive capacity and above all heavy reliance on climate-sensitive sector like agriculture in South Asia, makes it the most vulnerable region. Therefore, it is incumbent to carry out research on climate change perception, its bearings on human health, crops and livestock productivities, vulnerability assessments and adaptation of the rain-fed rural communities in response to climatic variabilities in countries like Pakistan, where sizeable population is reliant on agriculture for their bread and butter. Although there are constraints like availability of data, limited literature on perception, vulnerability assessment and response to climatic variabilities in Pakistan, but still it is of great importance to conduct such studies. Similarly, the assessment of capabilities for adaptation to those impacts for the agricultural sector, especially in rain-fed regions is not only a need of the hour but a very challenging research question as well. Therefore, this study was carried out with objectives; i) to get an insight of farmers’ cognizance to climate-related events; ii) mapping changes in land use land cover with historical perspective and to elucidate its causal factors; iii) assessment of the households’ vulnerability to climate-related events; and iv) to find out factors influencing farmers’ selection of farm and non-farm based adaptation strategies or measures in the face of climate change. This study focused on perception analysis of communities in rain-fed areas about climate change by exploring household social vulnerability, biophysical vulnerability and measures taken in a rain-fed district of Chakwal in Punjab, Pakistan. To comprehend the complexity, this study adopted an interdisciplinary approach and methodology by using specially designed survey instrument for data collection, GIS and Remote Sensing tools and statistical techniques for principal component and multivariate analyses. This study considered historical climate data (temperature and precipitation) of Chakwal District and focused on household survey of 475 respondents in the rain-fed rural zone (Barani) of Pakistan. The results indicated that 96% of farmers perceived climate change as reality and experienced climate-related hazards (drought, erratic rainfall, temperature rise, hailstorm, fog etc.) over the last twenty years or so. Such findings are quite comparable with scientific observations of climate data of the study area. For example, farmers reported uncertainty and decrease in farm productivities; animal diseases; human health impacts; changes in sowing times and dwindling water due to detected climatic hazards. In response, farmers have changed sowing dates of their crops, followed improved crop production practices and some invested in water ponds to irrigate their crops. Further, it was found that shortage of water, poverty and weak institutional set-up increased the household susceptibility to climatic threats. The study also assessed the social vulnerability of household by Principal Component Analysis using SPSS Version 21 and spatial vulnerability mapping of Chakwal District by GIS. The results showed that i tehsils Talagang and Lawa have high vulnerability, whereas Kallar Kahar has low- medium level vulnerability and Chakwal and Choa Saiden Shah have low level vulnerability to climate related hazards. The biophysical vulnerability assessment was also analyzed by mapping land cover dynamics in the study area using Landsat images (1985-2018) in Google Earth Engine. The findings of integrated vulnerability assessment revealed that rain-fed cropping area of the total land cover area is still the dominant land cover type (54%) and remains same for the last two decades depicting its vulnerability to climatic variabilities and reliance of rain-fed farm communities on agricultural activities for their livelihood. The determinants of adaptation strategies made by farmers toward climate-induced anomalies was analyzed using multivariate probit model. The results showed that rural communities particularly farmers perceived alterations in climate very well but could not adapt accordingly due to different resource impediments and lack of awareness and information. Therefore, adoption rate of various adaptation strategies was confined to low-costly measures or rather simple measures and generally could not include radical and innovative tools. It was further noted that various factors such as socio-economic parameters, agro-ecological factors, institutional support etc. influenced the choice of adaptation measures. On the basis of the results of this study, it is recommended that it is important to extend scientific, technical, financial and institutional support to farmers in rain-fed areas not only to improve agricultural production for ensuring food security but also to make their livelihoods resilient to climate change. Such support to farmers in rain-fed areas should include strategic interventions suggested to achieve UN sustainable development goal, SDG 2- “end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture” and SDG 3 –“taking urgent actions to combat climate change and its impacts” in the National Sustainable Development Strategy, 2017 of Pakistan. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I want to thank my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Muhammad Irfan Khan for being my first mentor and advisor and providing me a place in his excellent research group, where I learned how good research is done. I appreciate all his contributions of time, ideas, and support to make