Livelihood Vulnerability Exploring Links with Climate Variability

Abstract

Climate Change presents perhaps the most profound challenge ever to have confronted human, social, newlinepolitical, and economic systems. Globally, it is causing devastating effects on human society including newlinedrastic changes in agriculture, water resources, coastal regions, health, economy, biodiversity and newlineother extreme climate events. Climate variability and Change has its links with poverty, livelihoods and newlinedevelopment, disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable and marginalised who have contributed newlinethe least to problem but are the most impacted. Literature review indicates that Climate Impact newlineassessments made by the General Circulation Models are limiting as these do not provide information newlinefor small regions especially impacts of climate change on livelihoods of communities like the tribal newlineregions which are less explored and less known making the future scenarios more uncertain for taking newlineresponsive adaptation decisions. The current research aims to contribute to filling in the gap of newlinecommunity centric livelihood vulnerability studies specifically from a climate variability perspective. It newlineattempts to understand the relationship between livelihoods and climate variability for a forest dwelling newlineParticularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), Konda Reddis of East Godavari district of Andhra newlinePradesh. newlineThe key research questions that the study attempted to answer were: (a) What are the drivers of current newlinevulnerabilities among the Konda Reddis of Pathakota? (b) What role does Climate variability and newlineChange play in the current vulnerabilities and how? (c) How is the local community responding to the newlinecurrent vulnerabilities? and (d) What needs to be done among the community under study to protect newlinethem from long term Climate impacts. newlineThe study adopted the Exploratory Case Study as the Research Strategy (Yin, 1987). The study was newlineexplorative in nature trying to critically look at the dimensions of vulnerabilities from a peoples newlineperspective. The theoretical framework of the research was lar