Perceptions of climate change by highland communities in the Nepal Himalaya

Abstract

The impacts of climate change in remote communities of the Himalaya have been relatively underexplored. This study combines traditional knowledge of people from three Village Development Committees (VDCs) of three districts of the high altitudinal regions in Nepal with scientific data to document the changes in climatic patterns, natural hazards, ecological systems and agricultural practices. The respondents perceived notable changes in the local climatic conditions, the frequency of natural disasters and ecological processes. Their perception of warming over the past 15–20 years parallels the increase in mean annual temperature recorded in the Thehe VDC of the Humla district, Tukuche VDC of the Mustang district and Lelep VDC of the Taplejung district from 1973 to 2012 by 0.02°C/year, 0.04°C/year and 0.01°C/year, respectively. Most respondents perceived an increase in the frequency of floods and landslides. The recorded average frequency of natural hazards including fire, flooding, landslide and avalanche has increased significantly from 1.5 ± 0.61 incidences/year for the period 1972–1991 to 10.4 ± 2.91 incidences/year for the period 1992–2011. Increased occurrence of pests and insects was also noted. The results show that climate change has already affected local communities and they are responding by spontaneously developing adaptive livelihood strategies.