Rural households' livelihood adaptation strategies in the face of changing climate: A case study from Pakistan

Nasir Abbas Khan; Ashfaq Ahmad Shah; Ataharul Chowdhury; Libin Wang; Bader Alhafi Alotaibi; Muhammad Rafay Muzamil

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e28003

Rural households' livelihood adaptation strategies in the face of changing climate: A case study from Pakistan

Heliyon. 2024 Mar 12;10(6):e28003. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e28003. eCollection 2024 Mar 30.

Authors

Nasir Abbas Khan^{1

2}, Ashfaq Ahmad Shah³, Ataharul Chowdhury², Libin Wang³, Bader Alhafi Alotaibi⁴, Muhammad Rafay Muzamil⁵

Affiliations

¹ Research Center of Risk Management and Emergency Decision-making, School of Management Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, China.
² School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
³ College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.
⁴ Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Society, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, 11451, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Institute of Agricultural Extension, Education and Rural Development, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan.

Abstract

Rural and agricultural communities' adaptation to climate change has gained significant attention owing to many countries' vulnerability to climate change risks. A similar trend has been witnessed in South Asia, a highly climate-vulnerable region, where research has grown dramatically considering the agriculture sector's vulnerability to climate-induced disasters. However, little attention has been paid to the adaptation of the livelihoods of rural households. This research, therefore, takes the case of Pakistan to explore livelihood adaptation strategies of rural households to climate change and investigate the factors that expedite or halt the adoption of livelihood diversification strategies. A multistage sampling design is used in this research, where 480 rural households from the Punjab province of Pakistan were selected and interviewed using stratified and random sampling approaches. A multivariate probit (MVP) regression model is employed to analyze the factors affecting households' adoption of livelihood adaptation strategies. The results show that besides adaptation of agronomic operations (agricultural adaptation strategies), rural households in the study area employed a wide range of strategies to adapt their livelihoods to climate change. These strategies include poultry and livestock farming, value addition of farm produce, trading of animals and farm commodities, small businesses (shops, etc.), daily wage labor, horticultural crop farming, and non-farming jobs. The estimates of the MVP model revealed that respondents' education, household size, income, access to a credit facility, access to farm advisory services, and access to climate forecasts have significantly influenced the choice of livelihood adaptation strategies. Based on these findings, this research recommends that the authorities should make efforts to improve farmers' understanding of the adaptation of climate change risks and educate them to adopt multiple livelihood options to improve the resilience of their livelihoods to climate-induced risks. This research has important policy implications for other countries with similar socio-economic features.

Keywords: Adaptation; Agriculture; Climate change; Pakistan; Rural livelihoods.