Vulnerability and Adaptation Strategies to Climate Change

Climate change is considered as one of the most serious threats to natural resources, human health, people's livelihood and sustainable development. This research entitled "Vulnerability and Adaptation Strategies of Rural People to Climate Change in Mid-Hills of Nepal" was carried out in Khanchikot VDC, Arghakhanchi district of Nepal with the aim of assessing and documenting vulnerability and adaptation strategies of rural people to climate change effects. Primary data were collected from household survey (11 % of the total households), interview with key informants, and group discussion with stratified random sampling and analyzed using SPSS 11.5 and MS Excel 2007. The average annual rainfall is decreasing at the rate of 18.02 mm per year whereas average annual mean temperature is increasing at the rate of 0.07c per year. Major climatic hazards of the study were long drought and landslide and floods. The poor people are more vulnerable to long drought (2 =16.69 with d.f.4 at 5% level of significance is significant) and landslide and floods (2 = 12.31 with d.f.4 at 5% level of significance is significant) than rich rural people.