An Assessment of vulnerability of fishers’ livelihood to climate change in coastal Odisha.

Abstract

A study was conducted in Odisha, a state on the east coast of India, with the objective of assessing the vulnerability of fisher’s livelihood to climate change. The state was chosen for study since it is considered as one of the most vulnerable states due to climate change. A total of 120 fishers were interviewed from two districts, Balasore and Ganjam, to assess their livelihood vulnerability by considering their exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity to climate change. A composite livelihood vulnerability index with minima 0, and maxima 1 was used for the purpose. The composite livelihood vulnerability index approach calculates vulnerability by aggregating data for a set of indicators for the components of vulnerability which include exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. The aggregated vulnerability score was found to be 0.54 ± 0.04, suggesting that fishers are vulnerable to climate change. For fishers of Balasore the score was 0.56 ± 0.03 and for Ganjam it was 0.5 ± 0.04. Vulnerability score was relatively higher in Baleswar due to higher scores on the exposure and sensitivity parameters overshadowing the higher adaptive capacity. The study shows evidence that marine fishers of Odisha are vulnerable to climate change. Also, it throws light on the location and context specificity of livelihood vulnerability. Current World Environment www.cwejournal.org ISSN: 0973-4929, Vol. 14, No. (1) 2019, Pg. 60-67 CONTACT S.N. Ojha snojha@cife.edu.in ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education, Panch Marg, Andheri(W), Mumbai-400061, Maharashtra, India. © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Enviro Research Publishers. This is an Open Access article licensed under a Creative Commons license: Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY). Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.12944/CWE.14.1.08 Article History Received: 12 December 2018 Accepted: 06 March 2019