Chapter 9: Rural Areas
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9.3.5. Key Vulnerabilities and Risks
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9.3.5.1. Drivers of Vulnerability and Risk
There is low agreement, but medium evidence, on the direction in which some key factors may affect vulnerability or resilience in rural areas, including rainfed as opposed to irrigated agriculture, small-scale and family-managed farms, integration into world markets, and diversification. Brouwer et al. (2007),contrary to expectations, found that vulnerability to flooding in Bangladesh in terms of damage suffered was lower for households that fully depended on natural resources than those who did not. Osbahr et al. (2008) found that diversification in rural areas does not always reduce vulnerability and can increase inequity within communities if it is not accompanied by reciprocity. There is robust evidence and high agreement on the importance for resilience of drivers such as access to land and natural resources, flexible local institutions and knowledge and information, and the association of gender and vulnerability (see Box CC-GC and Chapter 13).
The most commonly used approach to analyzing causes of vulnerability use the concepts of entitlements or livelihoods in evaluating the multiscale factors shaping people’s assets, as well as their adaptive capacity to hazards and stressors. Although vulnerability is experienced locally, its causes and solutions occur at different social, geographic, and temporal scales, and are seen as context-dependent (Ribot, 2010). Non-climate factors affecting vulnerability in rural areas at both individual and community levels (Eakin and Wehbe, 2009) include the following:
• Physical geography, for example, desert or semi-desert conditions (Lioubimtseva and Henebry, 2009), remoteness (Horton et al., 2010), level of dependence on climate conditions (Brondizio and Moran, 2008; Sietz et al., 2011)
• Economic constraints and poverty (Macdonald et al., 2009; Mertz et al., 2009a; Ahmed et al., 2011; Sietz et al., 2011)
• Gender inequalities (Nelson et al., 2002)
• Social, economic, and institutional shocks/trends (e.g., urbanization, industrialization, prevalence of female-headed households, landlessness,short-time policy horizons, low literacy, high share of agriculture in GDP), as well as demographic changes,HIV/AIDS, access to and availability of food, density of social networks, memories of past climate variations, knowledge, and long-term residence in the region (Parks and Roberts, 2006; Brondizio and Moran, 2008; Cooper et al., 2008; Macdonald et al., 2009; Mertz et al., 2009a; Simelton et al., 2009; Gbetibouo et al., 2010b; Ruel et al., 2010; Sallu et al., 2010; Ahmed et al., 2011; Mougou et al., 2011; Seto 2011).
This section focuses on the following drivers of vulnerability to climate change: water, market orientation and farm scale, institutions and access to resources, gender, migration, and access to information and knowledge.
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9.3.5.1.5. Gender
Box CC-GC sets out the general issues on climate change and gender related inequalities. These are of special relevance to rural areas, particularly but not solely in the developing world (Nelson and Stathers, 2009; Vincent et al., 2010; Alston, 2011) (robust evidence, high agreement).Access to land shows strong differences between men and women, as do labor markets (FAO, 2010), and access to non-farm entrepreneurship (Rijkers and Costa, 2012). Fewer than 20% of the world’s landholders are women, but women still play a disproportionate role in agriculture. On average women make up around 43% of the agricultural labor force in developing countries; in South Asia almost 70% of employed women work in agriculture, and more than 60% in sub-Saharan Africa (FAO, 2010, 2011). Climate change also increases vulnerability through male out-migration that increases the work to women (Chindarkar, 2012); cropping and livestock changes that affect gender division of labor (Lambrou and Paina, 2006); increased difficulty in accessing resources (fuelwood and water) (Tandon, 2007); and increased conflicts over natural resources (Omolo, 2011).
Women are generally, though not in every context, more vulnerable to the impacts of extreme events, such as floods and tropical cyclones (Neumayer and Plümper, 2007).
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9.4. Adaptation and Managing Risks
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9.4.4. Limits and Constraints to Rural Adaptation
Access to information is affected by human resources, or social characteristics (medium evidence, high agreement).These include culture, gender, age, governance, and institutions (Deressa et al., 2009; Goulden et al., 2009; Nielsen and Reenberg, 2010; Jones and Boyd, 2011). A growing body of literature investigatesthe socio-cognitive, psychological, and cultural barriers to adaptation. Section 2.2.1.2 explains how culture and psychology affect decision making; Section 16.2 also discusses how the framing of adaptation depends on perception of risk and values. For planned adaptation to be successful, or autonomous adaptation to occur, actors need to be convinced of the magnitude of risks of climate change (Patt and Schröter, 2008).
9.5. Key Conclusions and Research Gaps
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9.5.1 Key Conclusions:
Many of the non-climate factors characterizing rural areas and populations within them, especially in low- and middle-income countries, are cited as factors increasing vulnerability to climate change.There is high agreement on the importance of resilience of access to land and natural resources, flexible local institutions, and knowledge and information, and the association of gender inequalities with vulnerability.
Prevailing constraints,such as low levels of educational attainment, environmental degradation, gender inequalities, and isolation from decision-making, create additional vulnerabilities which undermine rural societies’ ability to cope with climate risks (high confidence). The supply of information and opportunities for learning will be a key issue.
