Dynamics of exposure, sensitivity, adaptive capacity and agricultural vulnerability at district scale for Maharashtra, India

Climate variability, in particular, monsoon and temperature variability is an emerging threat for agricultural system across the globe. So far, a number of studies have analyzed the agricultural vulnerability of a region for a particular year, and thereby, the results obtained were biased towards the climatic and agro-ecological factors of that particular year resulting in an imprecise understanding about the contributing factors of vulnerability. Specific reasons of agricultural vulnerability of a region can be clearly identified by analyzing its contributing factors for long-term. In line of this, our study performs the 50-year analysis from the year 1966-2015 to identify the key drivers of agricultural vulnerability at district level for Maharashtra state in India. We used indicator based approach to assess the dynamics of three dimensions of vulnerability i.e., exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity followed by formulating the composite vulnerability index for each district of Maharashtra. Exposure includes monsoon and temperature variability parameters, sensitivity includes land sensitivity parameters i.e., barren land, fragmented land-holdings etc., and adaptive capacity includes parameters of human capital, physical capital, total assets and land productivity. Formulation of vulnerability index is done via i) first, identifying the underlying factors of vulnerability, ii) normalizing the indicators, iii) identifying functional relationship of each indicator with vulnerability, and iv) aggregating the indicators using equal weightage method. We analyzed the reasons for increasing/decreasing trend of vulnerability for each district of Maharashtra. As an example, vulnerability of Ahmednagar district in Nashik region increased by 0.065 units due to decrease in adaptive capacity by 0.06 units and increase in land sensitivity by 0.018 units over past 50 years. Similarly, vulnerability of Chandarpur district in Vidarbha region reduced by 0.025 units by decrease in exposure by 0.017 and sensitivity by 0.007 units along with increase in adaptive capacity by 0.008 units from the year 1966-2015. Findings show that a few districts are vulnerable despite being least exposed to climate variability signifying the contribution of sensitivity and adaptive capacity parameters towards their vulnerability. The results also highlight the intra-regional district level variability in resource distribution, exposure and sensitivity parameters indicating the significance of having a district-wise policy for Maharashtra, India.

Automated summary

Climate variability, particularly monsoon and temperature variability, poses a new threat to agricultural systems globally. Long-term factors are found to be crucial in determining agricultural vulnerability. A study analyzing 50 years of data from 1966 to 2015 in Maharashtra, India, identified key drivers of vulnerability at the district level, revealing variations in exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity among districts.