Rural Communities adapting to climate change picture Towards an integrated approach Sangeeta Gupta T

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Rural Communities adapting to Climate Change
Rural Communities adapting to Climate Change
Opportunities for ICTs
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Climate Change A Reality
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Adaptation is necessary
Additional adaptation measures would be required
to reduce the adverse impacts of projected
climate change and variability, regardless of the
scale of mitigation taken in the next 2-3
decades.Source IPCC
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Adaptation Process
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Need for proactive approach
Planned and anticipatory
Adaptation
Autonomous and reactive
Planned anticipatory adaptation has the potential
to reduce vulnerability and realize opportunities
associated with climate change
Source IPCC TAR
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India

• Population of over a billion people
• Nearly 65 in rural India- over 700 million
• Nearly 40 is illiterate
• Nearly 56 of rural households still
  un-electrified
• Nearly 26 of the population lives below the
  poverty line
• Over 7000 km of coastline

Source NATCOMM , Survey of India 2001, Times of
India. India Portal
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Key climate sensitive sectors
Health
Agriculture
Water
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Key challenges in India

• Agriculture vital to Indias development
• Provides food to over 1 billion people,
  contributes significantly to the GDP
• Source of livelihood to many
• Nearly 2/3 rd of land under agriculture still
  rainfed
• Water-scarcity
• Over-stressed natural resources
• Lack of primary health facilities
• High level of illiteracy and poverty

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Poor Rural communities
Especially vulnerable to climate change

• Unaware about the looming threat which Climate
  Change imposes
• Low adaptive capacities
• Direct dependence on climate sensitive sectors
  and natural resources for livelihood and
  sustenance

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Agriculture

• Impacts
• Decreased crop yield
• Irrigation demands
• Cropping pattern
• Pests and diseases
• Malnutrition
• Food security
• Prices
• Adaptation
• Erosion control
• Development of early warning system,
  tolerant/resistant crops
• Conservation management of soil and water
• Diversification intensification of food
  plantation crops

Source IPCC
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Water

• Impacts
• Stress on existing water resources
• Reservoirs and wells would be affected-increase
  in salinity
• Reduced water supplies would place additional
  stress on people, agriculture, and the
  environment
• Adaptation
• Integrated Water resource management
• Water re-use
• Desalination
• Irrigation Efficiency

Source IPCC
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Health

• Impacts
• Increased deaths, disease and injury due to heat
  waves, floods, storms and droughts
• Adaptation
• Disease surveillance and control systems
• Access to better health facilities
• Emergency relief systems

Source IPCC
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Opportunities for ICTs

• Integrated natural resource management
• Early warning models
• Surveillance system
• Disaster response and relief systems
• Decision Support Systems (DSS)
• Knowledge and information networks
• Capacity building tools
• Advisory services
• Awareness creation and communication

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Opportunities for ICTs

• Options for last mile connectivity
• Mobile/ portable devices
• Smart mobile telecentres
• Smart cards
• Low cost technologies and rugged solutions
• Energy efficient equipment
• Alternate sources of energy

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Indias National Action Plan on Climate Change

• Two out of 8 missions
• Mission for Sustainable Agriculture
• Mission on Strategic Knowledge on Climate Change
• Role of ICTs
• Extensive use of GIS and remote-sensing
  methodologies for the mapping of vulnerable
  regions and pest and disease hot spots
• Developing regional databases of soil, weather,
  agricultural practice, land-use patterns, and
  water resources
• Low-cost high-performance computing facility to
  generate climate projections through
  sophisticated climate models run for longer time
  periods and at a high spatial scale

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Integrated approach
Multi-Stakeholder Involvement- PPP Model
Coping Measures
Impact and Vulnerability Assessment
ICT Backbone Internet Radio Mobile
Television Satellite Telephone
Resource Centres
Telecentres
Rural Communities
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Pilot projects

• I. Develop Information Sharing System (ISS)
• to Enhance Coping Capacities of Farming
  Communities in Dealing with Climate Variability
  and Climate Change in drought prone region in
  Northern India
• Provide real-time agro advisory services
• Facilitate rapid exchange and sharing of
  information among various stakeholders including
  farming communities, agriculture scientists and
  agri- extension workers

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Agriculture Council
Local bodies
Research Institutes
Met Department
Climatic Info Cropping Pattern Soil Condition
Pest and Disease Ground water status
TERI
Agriculture Knowledge Centre
Farming Community
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Pilot projects
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Pilot projects

• II. Use of existing telecom infrastructure in
  rural areas for installing automatic weather
  stations to capture weather parameters such as
  temperature, rainfall and humidity.
• Provide more accurate agro advisory
• Feed into regional level climate modelling for
  impact assessment studies
• Help in designing weather related insurance
  products

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Long way to go

• Reach the bottom of the pyramid
• Develop coping measures for the rural poor
• Build capacities among the vulnerable communities
• Create an information and knowledge exchange for
  wider awareness

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It is time to act and fast
It is not time to think
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"A technological society has two choices First
it can wait until catastrophic failures expose
systemic deficiencies, distortion and
self-deceptions. Secondly, a culture can provide
social checks and balances to correct for
systemic distortion prior to catastrophic
failures"