Abstract
Recent studies have indicated that South Asian countries including India will particularly be vulnerable to climate change impacts. These include changes in temperature and rainfall regime, agriculture yields, sea level rise, extreme weather events, melting of glaciers, changes in ecosystem function, shifts in species distribution etc. Of late some of these impacts are being felt with greater frequency in the Indian subcontinent e.g. extreme weather events such as cyclones on India’s eastern coast and droughts in the western states of Rajasthan and Gujarat. Serious health related problems are also being attributed to climate impacts include outbreaks of vector borne diseases like malaria.
The present study reviews the various efforts to document and articulate people’s perceptions and knowledge of the impacts of climate change in diverse ecosystems in India. The study analyses the relationship between local community knowledge of climate change and the available scientific evidence and suggests that people’s local knowledge of climate indicators conforms to existing scientific data. Effectiveness of citizen‘s initiatives to rapidly document climate change at pan India level have also been reviewed. The paper recommends adaptive strategies at local, national and regional level for limiting climate change and intervention across several sectors for developmental planning. The paper also suggests various stake holder based policy measures for integration with long term social and technological changes for mitigation and adaptation strategies for climate change.
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Rao, P., Filho, W.L. (2015). Local Community Perception of Climate Change and Scientific Validation: A Review of Initiatives and Perspectives in the Indian Region. In: Leal Filho, W. (eds) Climate Change in the Asia-Pacific Region. Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14938-7_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14938-7_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
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