Impacts Of Climate Change On Rural Livelihood In Ningxia

Climate change has aroused widespread international attention. Climate change, which characters with warming, will cause precipitation and temperature change, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events increase, and so on. Climate change will have direct or indirect impacts on livelihoods in different ways, though different in magnitude. Livelihood is the combination of all the resources people using and their activities to live. This paper will introduce livelihood to the impacts of climate change research. To research the past and the present climate change impacts on the livelihood (natural capital, human capital, financial capital, social capital, physical capital, activities and capacity, livelihood countermeasures) of farmers in different agro-ecological systems in regional scale, climate data of 23 weather stations during 1961-2004 in Ningxia, survey results of 9 selected sites 289 households and other relative data were collected. Both the livelihoods analysis and Participatory Rural Appraisal methods were used in this research. It explores a new method to research interdisciplinary of social economics and natural sciences.Main conclusions are as follows:1) Farmers'livelihoods of the three agro-ecological areas in Ningxia are subjected to the impacts of climate change and meteorological disasters. The change of precipitation and temperature in particular with the reduction of precipitation and all kinds of meteorological disasters such as drought occurred in Ningxia, had a greater impact on farmers'livelihood of the capital in the three areas, affected the ability and the activity to earn a living indirectly.2) The impacts of climate change on different agro-ecological systems varies by areas. For most of the specific forms of capital, the middle arid area and southern rainfed mountainous area are more seriously affected, such as the accessibility to drinking and irrigation water, grain production, cropping composition and sowing area, the population of people working outside, farmers'income, expense of buying water, the price of grain, which resulted in a hard life for farmers. These two areas are more sensitive to climate change and the impacts. The northern irrigation area is less affected relatively. For livelihood activities and capacity, the southern rainfed mountainous area is affected most seriously, while the northern irrigation area is affected least. Climate change also affects the importance of livelihood countermeasures of the farmers; especially the performance in the middle arid area is outstanding. The importance of "cultivation of grain crops" is significantly decreased, and by contraries, the importance of "working outside" and "subsidies" is increased. In the northern irrigation area, it seems that climate change has little impact on the importance of livelihoods countermeasures.3) Farmers who are relying only on agriculture are poorer and more vulnerable than the others. It can be explained by the ecological environment and agricultural development in the locality. For example, both in the southern and middle areas which natural conditions are poor and farming practices are outdated, farming is the major approach through which farmers meet their food needs. Few people are able to make extra money from farming activities. These people are more vulnerable to the frequent occurrences of droughts and hails.4) The local farmers have adopted some adaptation measures, but not enough. The measures adapting to climate change include measures to retain/enhance soil moisture, rainwater collection, water saving irrigation, labor export, and migration. But local farmers are still leading a hard life, and adaptation measures to face the increasingly serious situation of climate change are not sufficient. At present, both harrowing and film mulching are the two common and more effective measures in retaining/enhancing soil moisture. In addition, since the government support strongly, catchments, water cellars and terrace are also effective adaptation measures.5) Water resources, funds and infrastructure are the major factors to restrict the ability of farmers dealing with climate change. Location, wealth level, and education level are the potential factors of adaptive capacity.