Socio-economic vulnerability to climate change – Index development and mapping for districts in Maharashtra, India

Climate change is adversely affecting agrarian economy and farmers welfare in the Maharashtra state of India. An attempt has been made to develop climate change induced socio-economic vulnerability index (SeVI) comprising various socio-economic as well as crop and dairy indicators for 34 districts of Maharashtra. The SeVI was calculated using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) approach using exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity components of vulnerability. Primary normalization of indicators was performed and weights were assigned to each indicator using the principal component analysis. Later, all districts were categorized as high, moderate and less vulnerable to climate change based on the magnitude of the index. Sangali has the highest exposure to socio-economic vulnerability (0.62) and the lowest was in Wardha (0.38). Sensitivity was found highest in Akola (0.68) and lowest in Sindhudurg (0.33). The highest adaptive capacity was identified in Pune (0.56) and the lowest was in Beed (0.19). Not a single district among all had higher adaptive capacity than exposure and sensitivity combined together. The SeVI was highest in Nandurbar (0.91) and lowest in Pune (0.41). Results indicated that out of 34 districts, 11 were categorized as highly vulnerable (39.94% cropped area), 14 as moderately vulnerable (36.85% cropped area), and nine as less vulnerable to climate change (23.21% cropped area). A majority of the highly vulnerable districts are from Central Maharashtra Plateau Zone. Moderately vulnerable districts are from Central and Eastern Vidarbha Zone. Less vulnerable districts are from North Konkan Coastal, Scarcity Zone and Western Maharashtra Zone. To cope with vulnerability to climate change, the focus should be on ground level adaptation and mitigation strategies. Major emphasis should be given in water scarcity zone and central zone of Maharashtra. Identifying the best fit strategies for adoption by assessing the locale respondent’s perception is a task of utmost importance while dealing with climate change induced socio-economic vulnerability