Climate resilience of farming systems in steep mountain terrain of selected regions in South Asia

Abstract

This study assessed the climate resilience and characterized the existing farming systems in steep terrain in the hilly regions in South Asia. The farming systems considered were at an elevation (cid:21) 300 m in the mountain regions of two sites from Sri Lanka (Hatton and Welimada) and one site each from Bangladesh (Chittagong) and Nepal (Jhikhu Khola). A Climate Resilient Index (CRI i ) score, varying from 0 (negligible resilience) and 1 (very high resilience), was calculated for each household using 31 parameters under Adaptive Capacity (ADC), Absorptive Capacity (ABC) and Transfor-mative Capacity (TC). To spatially represent the CRI i , the four study locations were mapped using Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) interpolation technique of GIS. All 424 households in the study sites scored a CRI i between 0.36 and 0.76, while the average CRI was the highest in Hatton (0.67), followed by Welimada (0.60), Jhikhu Khola (0.59) and Chittagong (0.48). Different demographic, socioeconomic and environmental parameters have contributed to the level of climate resilience of farming system units. Iden-tification of good management practices of the climate-resilient farming systems and implementing those practices in vulnerable systems would increase the resilience and well-being of farming communities in steep terrain of mountain regions in south Asia.