Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY AND RESOURCE DEPENDENT COMMUNITIES: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY IN COASTAL SUNDERBAN, WEST BENGAL, INDIA

Jyotish Prakash Basu and Aishwarya Basu

Abstract

The present paper attempts to measure vulnerability of different communities who are dependent on coastal resources like fishing and crab collection and also tries to measure such vulnerability for other communities who are in the informal sector, petty business and casual labour in the Indian coastal Sunderbans. The Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) and modified LVI-IPCC index have been used to measure such vulnerability. The paper is based on primary data collected from 197 households from four villages in the district of South 24 Parganas, one of the coastal districts of Indian Sunderbans, West Bengal, India, in 2018 with the help of a structured questionnaire. The results of the paper revealed that the communities who engaged in crab collection and fishing are relatively more vulnerable than that of other communities who are in informal sector, casual labour and petty businessmen. This paper has an important policy implication for conservation of natural resources and reduction of dependency on natural resources by creating of alternative livelihood opportunity to the resource dependent communities.