Abstract:
Rural communities, who are dominantly dependent upon natural resources, have always been
adjusting their livelihood against the vagaries of climate. With the global climate change, these
communities have been placed in greater vulnerability as the weather and extreme events have
become more unpredictable. In order to formulate suitable policy measures to address their livelihood,
assessment of local level vulnerability is very important. This paper analyzes the micro-level
vulnerability of rural community in the three agro-climatic zones of Janamora district utilizing the
data collected from 352 households from the three agro-climatic zones. The analysis is based on
indices constructed from carefully selected indicators for exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity.
The indicators are weighted using Principal Component Analysis. The study elucidated high to low
moderate vulnerability status of farming households of lowland community. The computed LVI of
Kolla agro-ecology/Lowland, Woinadega agro-ecology/Midland and Dega agro-ecology/Highland are
0.696, 0.567, and 0.638. Furthermore, results suggest that the Kolla/lowland agro-ecology is more
vulnerable in terms of natural assets (0.991) followed by climate variability (0.914). Policy measures
and development efforts should be focused towards improving the adaptive capacity of the rural
households, while keeping the post-disaster emergency relief measures in place for localities with
higher exposure to climate extremes. The poorest households should be the primary target of any
interventions.
