Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation in a Hill Farming System of the Himalayan Region: Climatic Trends, Farmers’ Perceptions and Practices

Farming communities in the hills and mountains of the Himalayan region are some of the most vulnerable to the changing climate, owing to their specific biophysical and socioeconomic conditions. Understanding the observed parameters of the changing climate and the farmers’ perceptions of it, together with their coping approaches, is an important asset to making farming communities resilient. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the observed change in climatic variables; understand farmers’ perceptions of the changing climate; and document their adaptation approaches in farming systems in the mid-hills of the central Himalayas. Data on the observed change in climatic variables were obtained from the nearby meteorological stations and gridded regional products, and farmers’ perceptions and their adaptation practices were collected from household surveys and from the interviews of key informants. The analysis of temperature data revealed that there has been a clear warming trend. Winter temperatures are increasing faster than summer and annual temperatures, indicating a narrowing temperature range. Results on precipitation did not show a clear trend but exhibited large inter-annual variability. The standardized precipitation index (SPI) showed an increased frequency of droughts in recent years. Farmers’ perceptions of the changing climate are coherent with the observed changes in climatic parameters. These changes may have a substantial impact on agriculture and the livelihood of the people in the study area. The farmers are adapting to climate change by altering their farming systems and practices. Location-specific adaptation approaches used by farmers are valuable assets for community resilience

Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation in a Hill Farming System of the Himalayan Region: Climatic Trends, Farmers’ Perceptions and Practices

Farming communities in the hills and mountains of the Himalayan region are some of the most vulnerable to the changing climate, owing to their specific biophysical and socioeconomic conditions. Understanding the observed parameters of the changing climate and the farmers’ perceptions of it, together with their coping approaches, is an important asset to making farming communities resilient. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the observed change in climatic variables; understand farmers’ perceptions of the changing climate; and document their adaptation approaches in farming systems in the mid-hills of the central Himalayas. Data on the observed change in climatic variables were obtained from the nearby meteorological stations and gridded regional products, and farmers’ perceptions and their adaptation practices were collected from household surveys and from the interviews of key informants. The analysis of temperature data revealed that there has been a clear warming trend. Winter temperatures are increasing faster than summer and annual temperatures, indicating a narrowing temperature range. Results on precipitation did not show a clear trend but exhibited large inter-annual variability. The standardized precipitation index (SPI) showed an increased frequency of droughts in recent years. Farmers’ perceptions of the changing climate are coherent with the observed changes in climatic parameters. These changes may have a substantial impact on agriculture and the livelihood of the people in the study area. The farmers are adapting to climate change by altering their farming systems and practices. Location-specific adaptation approaches used by farmers are valuable assets for community resilience

Drought risk assessment in central Nepal: temporal and spatial analysis

This paper presents temporal and spatial pattern of drought phenomena in central Nepal using standardized precipitation index (SPI) at multiple time scales. The study is based on 32 years of monthly precipitation data from 40 meteorological stations from 1981 to 2012. Results indicate that, while there is no distinct trend in regional precipitation, interannual variation is large. Trend analysis of drought index shows that most stations are characterized by increases in both severity and frequency of drought and trend is stronger for longer drought time scales. Over the study period, the summer season of 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009 and winters 2006, 2008 and 2009 were the worst widespread droughts. These dry periods have a serious impact on agriculture–livestock production of central Nepal. Better understanding of these SPI dynamics could help in understanding the characteristics of droughts and also to develop effective mitigation strategies

Spatial and temporal variability of rainfall in the Gandaki River Basin of Nepal Himalaya

Landslides, floods, and droughts are recurring natural disasters in Nepal related to too much or too little water. The summer monsoon contributes more than 80% of annual rainfall, and rainfall spatial and inter-annual variation is very high. The Gandaki River, one of the three major rivers of Nepal and one of the major tributaries of the Ganges River, covers all agro-ecological zones in the central part of Nepal. Time series tests were applied for different agro-ecological zones of the Gandaki River Basin (GRB) for rainfall trends of four seasons (pre-monsoon, monsoon, post-monsoon and winter) from 1981 to 2012. The non-parametric Mann-Kendall and Sen’s methods were used to determine the trends. Decadal anomalies relative to the long-term average were analyzed using the APHRODITE precipitation product. Trends in number of rainy days and timing of the monsoon were also analyzed. We found that the post-monsoon, pre-monsoon and winter rainfalls are decreasing significantly in most of the zones but monsoon rainfall is increasing throughout the basin. In the hill region, the annual rainfall is increasing but the rainy days do not show any trend. There is a tendency toward later departure of monsoon from Nepal, indicating an increase in its duration. These seasonally and topographically variable trends may have significant impacts for the agriculture and livestock smallholders that form the majority of the population in the GRB

Good participatory practice for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) research: the case of a COVID-19 prevention study

Background: The COPCOV study (chloroquine/ hydroxychloroquine prevention of coronavirus disease), which started recruitment in April 2020, is a multi-country double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial which is being conducted in healthcare facilities involved in COVID-19 case management. Participants are staff employed in facilities managing people with proven or suspected COVID-19. As part of the study, we conducted a series of engagement sessions. The aims were to assess the feasibility of the study, to identify context-specific ethical issues, to understand possible concerns, to fine tune research procedures and to refine the COPCOV information materials. Methods: The COPCOV study was approved by relevant institutional review boards. The sessions described in this paper were part of the study. We conducted a series of engagement sessions, each involving a short presentation of the study, a section where attendees were asked to express their willingness to participate in such a study, which information they would need to change their view and an open Q&A section. Answers were transcribed and coded into themes by two independent investigators. Themes were derived from the data. They complemented other site-specific engagement, communication, and public relation activities such as press releases and websites. Results and conclusions: From 16 th March 2020 to 20 th January 2021, 13 engagement sessions were conducted in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Nepal and the UK involving 222 attendees in total. Issues raised revolved around the social value and study rationale; safety of trial medications and risk-benefit balance; study design and commitments. These sessions helped us identify concerns people had, which helped us refine information materials as well as complement site feasibility assessments. Our experience strongly supports the use of participatory practices prior to conducting clinical trials

Livelihood vulnerability approach to assessing climate change impacts on mixed agro-livestock smallholders around the Gandaki River Basin in Nepal

Climate change vulnerability depends upon various factors and differs between places, sectors and communities. People in developing countries whose subsistence livelihood depends mainly upon agriculture and livestock production are identified as particularly vulnerable. Nepal, where the majority of people are in a mixed agro-livestock system, is identified as the world’s fourth most vulnerable country to climate change. However, there is limited knowledge on how vulnerable mixed agro-livestock smallholders are and how their vulnerability differs across different ecological regions in Nepal. This study aims to test two vulnerability assessment indices, livelihood vulnerability index and IPCC vulnerability index, around the Gandaki River Basin of central Nepal. A total of 543 households practicing mixed agro-livestock were surveyed from three districts, namely Dhading, Syangja and Kapilvastu representing three major ecological zones: mountain, mid-hill and Terai (lowland). Data on socio-demographics, livelihood determinants, social networks, health, food and water security, natural disasters and climate variability were collected and combined into the indices. Both indices differed for mixed agro-livestock smallholders across the three districts, with Dhading scoring as the most vulnerable and Syangja the least. Substantial variation across the districts was observed in components, sub-components and three dimensions (exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity) of vulnerability. The findings help in designing site-specific intervention strategies to reduce vulnerability of mixed agro-livestock smallholders to climate change

Hydrologic Regionalization under Data Scarcity: Implications for Streamflow Prediction

Continuous streamflow prediction is crucial in many applications of water resources planning and management. However, streamflow prediction is challenging, particularly in data-scarce regions. This paper demonstrates an approach to regionalize the flow duration curve for predicting daily streamflow in the data-scare region of the central Himalayas. We developed a regression-based model to estimate streamflow at various segments of a flow duration curve by incorporating basin characteristics and climate variables. This study analyzes the sensitivities of proximity and characteristics between the donor (gauged) and receptor (ungauged) basins for time-series streamflow prediction. Our results show that regionalization techniques perform better in low to medium flows over high flows. Our findings are significant in the central Himalayan regional context to inform operational and management decisions in water sector projects like hydropower plants, which generally rely on low-to-medium streamflow information. Although the quantitative results are region-specific, the approach and insights are generalizable to the Himalayan region

Insights on the Impacts of Hydroclimatic Extremes and Anthropogenic Activities on Sediment Yield of a River Basin

Streamflow and sediment flux variations in a mountain river basin directly affect the downstream biodiversity and ecological processes. Precipitation is expected to be one of the main drivers of these variations in the Himalayas. However, such relations have not been explored for the mountain river basin, Nepal. This paper explores the variation in streamflow and sediment flux from 2006 to 2019 in central Nepal’s Kali Gandaki River basin and correlates them to precipitation indices computed from 77 stations across the basin. Nine precipitation indices and four other ratio-based indices are used for comparison. Percentage contributions of maximum 1-day, consecutive 3-day, 5-day and 7-day precipitation to the annual precipitation provide information on the severity of precipitation extremeness. We found that maximum suspended sediment concentration had a significant positive correlation with the maximum consecutive 3-day precipitation. In contrast, average suspended sediment concentration had significant positive correlations with all ratio-based precipitation indices. The existing sediment erosion trend, driven by the amount, intensity, and frequency of extreme precipitation, demands urgency in sediment source management on the Nepal Himalaya’s mountain slopes. The increment in extreme sediment transports partially resulted from anthropogenic interventions, especially landslides triggered by poorly-constructed roads, and the changing nature of extreme precipitation driven by climate variability

Impact of Irrigation Method on Water Use Efficiency and Productivity of Fodder Crops in Nepal

Improved irrigation use efficiency is an important tool for intensifying and diversifying agriculture in Nepal, resulting in higher economic yield from irrigated farmlands with a minimum input of water. Research was conducted to evaluate the effect of irrigation method (furrow vs. drip) on the productivity of nutritious fodder species during off-monsoon dry periods in different elevation zones of central Nepal. A split-block factorial design was used. The factors considered were treatment location, fodder crop, and irrigation method. Commonly used local agronomical practices were followed in all respects except irrigation method. Results revealed that location effect was significant (p < 0.01) with highest fodder productivity seen for the middle elevation site, Syangja. Species effects were also significant, with teosinte (Euchlaena mexicana) having higher yield than cowpea (Vigna unguiculata). Irrigation method impacted green biomass yield (higher with furrow irrigation) but both methods yielded similar dry biomass, while water use was 73% less under drip irrigation. Our findings indicated that the controlled application of water through drip irrigation is able to produce acceptable yields of nutritionally dense fodder species during dry seasons, leading to more effective utilization and resource conservation of available land, fertilizer and water. Higher productivity of these nutritional fodders resulted in higher milk productivity for livestock smallholders. The ability to grow fodder crops year-round in lowland and hill regions of Nepal with limited water storages using low-cost, water-efficient drip irrigation may greatly increase livestock productivity and, hence, the economic security of smallholder farmers