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The purpose of this study is to first examine the factors affecting the intra-household perception of climate change. Second, the study investigates the impact of the perception of climatic stress on the operators’ and spouses’ intra-household adaptation strategies (farm and household financial strategies).

The study uses household survey data from Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. The study uses probit and negative binomial count data approaches to evaluate the empirical model.

Results confirm the existence of intra-household gender differences in the adaptation strategies. The authors found that although spouses perceive climatic stress, they are less likely to adapt to such stresses when it comes farming enterprise, but more likely to adapt to household financial strategies. In contrast, farm operators, in the presence of climatic stresses, undertake both farm and household finance adaptation strategies.

Investment in climate smart agriculture can help households in managing climatic stresses.

A farmer in Asia, and Vietnam in particular, faces significant risks from climatic changes. In Vietnam, agriculture is easily affected by natural disasters and climatic changes. This study provides insights into the perception of climatic changes by operators and spouses in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. Perceived changes in the climate have a greater impact on women because they typically lack the necessary tools to adapt to climate change. The current findings could be useful in managing climatic risk in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta and be helpful to policymakers in designing risk management strategies in response to climatic changes.

Increasing trends of climatic risk pose challenges to the food security and livelihoods of smallholders in vulnerable regions, where farmers often face loss of the entire crop, pushing farmers (mostly men) out of agriculture in destitution, creating a situation of agricultural making agriculture highly feminization and compelling male farmers to out-migrate. Climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs) are promoted to cope with climatic risks. This study aims to assess how knowledge related to CSAPs, male out-migration, education and income contribute to the determinants of male out-migration and CSAPs adoption and how they respond to household food security.

Sex-disaggregated primary data were collected from adopter and non-adopter farm families. STATA 13.1 was used to perform principle component analysis to construct knowledge, yield and income indices.

Yield and income index of adopters was higher for men than women. The probability of out-migration reduced by 21% with adoption of CSAPs. An increase in female literacy by 1 unit reduces log of odds to migrate by 0.37. With every unit increase in knowledge index, increase in log-odds of CSAPs adoption was 1.57. Male:female knowledge gap was less among adopters. Non-adopters tended to reduce food consumption when faced with climatic risks significantly, and the probability of migration increased by 50% with a one-unit fall in the nutrition level, thus compelling women to work more in agriculture. Gender-equitable enhancement of CSAP knowledge is, therefore, key to safeguarding sustainable farming systems and improving livelihoods.

The enhancement of gender equitable knowledge on CSAPs is key to safeguard sustainable farming systems and improved livelihoods.

This study is based on the robust data sets of 100 each of male and female from 100 households (n = 200) using well-designed and validated survey instrument. From 10 randomly selected climate-smart villages in Samastipur and Vaishali districts of Bihar, India, together with focus group discussions, the primary data were collected by interviewing both men and women from the same household.

Insurance is widely regarded as a key adaptation option for climate change. Yet, the experience of the insurance sector in dealing with climatic hazards, particularly flooding, has been highly varied. Drawing from the experience of the US National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), the purpose of this paper is to identify opportunities and challenges associated with using insurance as an adaptation strategy for climate change.

This article critically reviews the history and recent performance of the NFIP and considers lessons for climate change adaptation through insurance.

The US NFIP offers government‐subsidized flood insurance for firms and residences. Over its 40‐year history, the NFIP has struggled with financial instability and low levels of public participation in the program. The experience of the NFIP offers several lessons regarding the viability of insurance as an adaptation strategy: increasing insurance premiums to account for new climatic risks may mean that a growing segment of the population is unable or unwilling to purchase insurance, absent some other form of subsidization; educating the public on levels of risk and promoting appropriate risk mitigation are highly effective means for reducing damages from current and emerging weather‐related risks; and close public‐private cooperation is likely to be needed to prevent withdrawal of private insurers from high‐risk areas and to ensure that insurance coverage continues to be widely available.

Examination of past experience with insurance as a mechanism for climate adaptation offers lessons and insights that can inform development of effective strategies to address climate change.

This paper examines the determinants of concurrent adoption of farm risk management strategies by rice growers in two different ecosystems of Telangana agriculture-irrigated and rainfed ecosystems.

The primary data have been collected from the rice growers in two different ecosystems, and after checking the variance inflation factor (VIF) for controlling multicollinearity, a multinomial logit model has been used to examine the determinants of concurrent adoption of coping strategies by rice growers.

The study finds that adopting one risk management strategy persuades farmers to embrace other strategies, reducing the risk in agriculture between the two ecosystems. Among the determinants, farmers' age, education, contact with extension services, irrigation sources, livestock income, total farm income, crop loss reasons, and crop insurance awareness significantly influence the adoption of various risk management measures. However, considerable heterogeneity is found among the driving forces across the rice ecosystems.

The major policy implications that can be drawn from the analysis are increased access to information through government-funded extension services and the provision of alternative risk management technologies, such as drought-resistant or flood-resistant seeds, farmers' field schools and increased provision of crop insurance, farmer-friendly agriculture extension services, and farm investment support, are critical for assisting farmers managing risks. In addition, however, there should be ecosystem-specific policies to tackle the ecosystem heterogeneity.

This paper is very timely and entails some relevant policy implications for the development of Indian agriculture.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the market response of apple growers to price and price risk along with weather factors and weather risk in the state of Jammu & Kashmir. In other words, it tries to find the both short-run and long-run price elasticities of apples' market arrival and also the elasticity with respect to price-risk and weather-risk variables.

This paper uses the bound test approach of “auto-regressive distributed lag” (ARDL) model. Monthly data on market arrival of apples and respective prices along with other nonprice factors are used.

The bound test approach of ARDL confirms the existence of long-run relationship between the market arrival of apples and price and nonprice factors. The market response to price is found to be inelastic both in shortrun and longrun. The risk coefficients are negative indicating that apple growers are risk averse. However, they do respond strongly to weather risk than price risk.

Weather insurance must be provided to the apple growers to safeguard their production loss due to weather risks. Proper infrastructure in the form of storage facilities, marketing information, transport and communication to local markets should be provided to them. Unavailability of data at the district level poses a great difficulty to have a panel data analysis. But future research can be initiated to bridge this gap.

This paper considers the market response of apple growers under both price risk and weather risk which is first in its nature. The authors have not found any other paper discussing this in the case of apple in India.

Purpose – This work offers an investigation of the planning and implementation of climate-adaptation and vulnerability-reduction strategies in coastal mega-cities of the Global South, utilizing Kolkata, India, as a case study. This research is designed to identify factors that aid the implementation of climate-centered action in resource-constrained environments of developing countries and provide a set of policy guidelines reflecting best practices.

Methodology/approach – This work draws principally upon analysis of semistructured field interviews conducted in Kolkata, India, during December 2010 and January 2011. The findings are informed by additional data sources as well, including field observations, informal dialogues and meetings, and a review of secondary literature.

Findings – This work identifies several key success factors, including organizational restructuring, resource redistribution, technological innovation, use of external consultants, coupling of climate and development projects, and integration of climate approaches into infrastructure projects.

Research limitations – This research draws upon Kolkata as a case study; thus the work's broader applicability and utility depend on the similarities between the situation in Kolkata and that of other urban areas. As a local study, this work may also offer fewer insights for regional and national policy.

Originality and value – This work fills a timely, unmet need for a greater understanding of climate-adaptation action in the context of cities of the developing world. The extensive use of personal interviews provides unique insights into the minds of planning officials and professionals and draws upon their practical experience to draw lessons for a wide range of similar environments.

Conceptualizing development in terms of risk management has become a prominent feature of mainstream development discourse. This has led to a convergence between the rubrics of financial inclusion and risk management whereby improved access for poor households to private sector credit, insurance and savings products is represented as a necessary step toward building “resilience.” This convergence, however, is notable for a shallow understanding of the production and distribution of risks. By naturalizing risk as an inevitable product of complex systems, the approach fails to interrogate how risk is produced and displaced unevenly between social groups. Ignoring the structural and relational dimensions of risk production leads to an overly technical approach to risk management that is willfully blind to the intersection of risk and social power. A case study of the promotion of index-based livestock insurance in Mongolia – held as a model for innovative risk management via financial inclusion – is used to indicate the tensions and contradictions of this projected synthesis of development and risk management.

The objective of this chapter is to analyze the relationship between the perception and practice of environmental and corporate governance issues of insurance companies in Brazil, in the context of the global sustainability agenda. The implementation and dissemination of sustainable corporate actions demonstrates the organizations' responsible behavior and legitimizes their actions in relation to society. Based on the guiding actions of the Principles for Sustainability in Insurance, the sector has been sensitive to global challenges, including climate change and demographic change. However, the effective operationalization of an environmental action plan still shows itself as intermediate to incipient, evaluated by the coefficient of priority created for the various themes, considering the high risk management potential that characterizes the sector.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the current literature and ideas on how local climate change action (both mitigation and adaptation) could be intensified.

A literature review of Australian and international academic journals and policy documents on the current views of effective local climate action was conducted. Additional data on Australian grassroots community activities was compiled from the internet, participant observation and secondary sources.

The paper argues that local climate action is important and three key aspects could provide effective avenues to step‐up local climate action. These three avenues are: increased attention to local adaptation; the linking of adaptation and mitigation efforts together and with other local ecological concerns; and greater engagement with active community members and grassroots community‐initiated climate change actions. These three key aspects could give climate change a local saliency and tangibility, spur more effective action, build community resilience and reduce vulnerability.

Research is in the explorative stages and, therefore, only tentative conclusions and possible future directions can be suggested.

The avenues identified to scale‐up local action on climate change could be readily utilised by local governments and/or other interested groups.

The paper disseminates three compelling ways that climate action could be intensified at the local scale, and possibly create greater public engagement and avenues to innovative approaches to tackle climate change.

This paper generally aimed to evaluate the knowledge of rural farmers towards climate change (CC) and their adaptation practices as a way of reducing the vulnerability in different agro-ecological zones (AEZs) of Tanzania. This establishment is quite important because rural farmers are most vulnerable to impacts of CC. Therefore, there is a need to establish the actual knowledge on this aspect in order to meet the urgency for action on CC by using the endowed environmental resources. This knowledge will assist policy makers and CC practitioners.

This study employed systematic and simple random sampling procedures in selecting the districts and villages as study sites. It used both quantitative and qualitative data sets derived from climatic records, questionnaires survey, interviews and discussion. The Mann-Kendall test and Sen's slope, and theme content were used for data analyses.

The results exhibited that most farmers have been greatly adapting to CC through numerous and well-known practices. However, there has been adoption of other new practices mainly influenced by new knowledge from extension services, environmental endowments and temporal environmental change. Although there has been varied perceptions on CC, the results indicate that most farmers (>70%) are aware of the changing climate and their knowledge corresponds to meteorological data.

Most farmers perceived that prolonged drought and erratic rains are the main indicators of CC. These indicators were the base of copping and adaptation mechanisms. Despite this, there is a need for all climate practitioners to join hands in improving the existing adaptation practices that can limit climate impacts in local areas.