| In recent years,global climate change has triggered frequent occurrences of extreme meteorological disasters,which have become a clear threat to human society.The rural areas in the Loess Plateau region are mostly located in hilly and gully areas,with a fragile ecological environment and frequent occurrence of extreme disasters,resulting in deeper impacts on the livelihoods of farmers in the Loess Plateau from climate change.The outbreak of the COVID-19 in 2020 has seriously affected people’s life safety and normal life.Due to the direct impact of the epidemic and a series of measures taken to prevent the spread of the epidemic,the traditional "production purchase sales" mode of agricultural products has been suspended,which has a significant impact on the whole chain of agricultural production,operation and management as well as various fields,and has caused serious consequences for China’s agricultural production activities and agricultural product supply.Home isolation affects the return of migrant workers to their posts.Most farmers’ non-agricultural employment activities are affected by the COVID-19 epidemic.Farmers’ livelihood output is limited,and their non-agricultural income is significantly reduced.Meteorological disasters and the COVID-19 have brought major risks to the livelihoods of farmers on the Loess Plateau.How to improve the resilience of livelihoods has become the key to farmers’ resistance to the epidemic and to prevent them from returning to poverty.Therefore,assessing the resilience of farmers’ livelihoods and its influencing factors under the dual exposure of "meteorological disasters and COVID-19 epidemic" plays an important role in stabilizing farmers’ livelihoods and accelerating their recovery from disasters.Guided by ecological economics theory,sustainable livelihood theory,risk cognition theory,adaptive behavior theory,etc.,and on the basis of the former life planning resilience framework,this study constructs an evaluation index system of farmers’ livelihood resilience under the dual exposure of "meteorological disasters and COVID-19 epidemic" from five dimensions of buffer capacity,self-organizing capacity,learning capacity,transformation capacity,and medical care capacity,and analyzes and compares different regions Livelihood resilience and various dimension indices of farmers’ households with different exposure levels and characteristics of household heads.The purpose of this study is to empirically analyze the impact of different risks on the livelihood resilience of farmers on the Loess Plateau under the dual exposure of meteorological disasters and the COVID-19,as well as the main paths of farmers’ cognition and adaptive behavior affecting the livelihood resilience,And further test the expected theoretical hypothesis that "under the dual exposure of meteorological disasters and COVID-19,multiple external risks have negative effects on farmers’ livelihood resilience,and adaptive behavior plays a mesomeric effect in the process of farmers’ cognitive impact on livelihood resilience".On this basis,six models were established to test the impact of external risks on farmers’ livelihood resilience,the impact of external risks on farmers’ cognitive level,and the pathways of farmers’ cognitive and adaptive behavior on livelihood resilience.The research results indicate that:(1)Meteorological disasters affect the livelihoods of farmers.Meteorological disasters are widespread in the Loess Plateau region,causing huge losses to the local economy;In 2020,94.2% of farmers suffered at least one meteorological disaster;Drought is the main meteorological disaster in the region,and hail and late spring cold are the meteorological disasters that have a significant impact on farmers’ livelihoods after drought.As the exposure level of meteorological disasters increases,the level of farmers’ livelihood resilience and various dimensions of indices show a downward trend;The fluctuation in the resilience level of farmers’ livelihoods caused by the occurrence of meteorological disasters is higher than the superposition of meteorological disaster types.(2)The lockdown of the epidemic has affected the livelihoods of farmers.In 2020,due to the epidemic,the lockdown period was generally 20-60 days,resulting in adverse effects such as delayed agricultural hours,untimely field management,poor flow of crop markets,increased production costs,and limited migrant work for farmers.The longer the COVID-19 epidemic was closed,the greater the change of farmers’ livelihood resilience index,and the average value showed a downward trend;The buffering ability,self-organizing ability,and medical care ability will decrease with the increase of lockdown time,but there is no such trend in learning ability and transformation ability.(3)There are significant differences in the resilience and dimensions of farmers’ livelihoods in different regions.The level of livelihood resilience in Gansu Province is higher than that in Shaanxi Province and Shaanxi Province;In different dimensions,Gansu Province’s buffering ability,self-organizing ability,transformation ability,and medical care ability are higher than Shaanxi Province and Shaanxi Province,and Shanxi Province is at the highest level in the dimension of learning ability.(4)There are significant differences in the level of livelihood resilience among farmers with different household head characteristics.The livelihood resilience index of male headed households is significantly higher than that of female headed households;The livelihood resilience index decreases with the age of the head of household;The higher the education level of the head of household,the higher the level of livelihood resilience of rural households;The level of livelihood resilience of households headed by village cadres is significantly higher than that of households headed by non village cadres.(5)The natural risk,economic risk,social risk and health risk caused by meteorological disasters and COVID-19 epidemic have a significant negative effect on the livelihood resilience of farmers;Among them,natural risk is the biggest risk that has the greatest impact on farmers’ livelihoods at present,and it is also the biggest source that hinders the restoration of farmers’ livelihoods;Natural risks can affect farmers’ cognition,while economic risks,social risks and health risks have no impact on farmers’ cognition.(6)In the context of meteorological disasters and the COVID-19 epidemic,farmers’ cognition has a positive impact on their adaptive behavior and resilience;Farmers adopting adaptive behavior can improve their livelihood resilience;The more farmers know about climate change,meteorological disasters and COVID-19,the more they tend to adopt adaptive behavior to resist external risks and recover quickly.On this basis,it is concluded that under the dual exposure of meteorological disasters and COVID-19 epidemic,adaptive behavior has a mesomeric effect on farmers’ cognitive impact on livelihood resilience.Based on this,this study proposes the following countermeasures and suggestions:(1)Improve the level of rural education and strengthen skill training.(2)Measures such as expanding policy coverage and enhancing the guarantee of farmers’ livelihoods.(3)Transform livelihood strategies and promote balanced output among various livelihood modes.(4)Encourage farmers to join cooperatives and purchase agricultural related insurance. |
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