Criteria for selecting coping strategies to adapt with the challenges of extreme weather events
‘Ease of implementation’ of the practice, ‘cost involved’ for adopting or implementing the practice, ‘effectiveness’ of the practice as perceived by the respondents as per their experiences and ‘durability’ or longevity of the coping practice were the major concern for following coping strategies in Sundarbans. Effectiveness, cost of implementing the strategy, ease of implementation of current climate change adaptation practices is useful for planning future adaptation interventions (Füssel, 2007; Assan et al., 2018; Kihila, 2018). Farmers practising different agricultural enterprise combinations found that several coping mechanisms had given them benefits. While adopting any coping strategy, farmers considered the aforementioned criteria to select the best strategy. The result suggested that as per their experience, effectiveness got the highest rank as those criteria gave the farming community the best chance of survivability against extreme weather situations. Once any strategy was considered effective, farmers then judged its durability. As the Sundarbans region is one of the remotest parts of India, farmers tend to avoid any strategy whose longevity or durability was doubtful. The practices which were very effective for a long time were given priority over other practices. Farm households also considered the cost for considering the adoption of the practices, as their financial condition was not very sound due to fragmented landholding and damages caused by extreme weather events. Frequent extreme weather events caused damages to farm enterprises which resulted in extreme financial losses for the farming community therefore, to minimize losses by adopting coping strategies; their easiness to include in the farming system was not given high priority.
Coping Strategies With Respect To Soil Health Management
Salinity causes a great decline in the capacity of soil to use for agricultural production (Bello et al., 2021). The inundation of land with saline flood water and extremely saline groundwater was one of the major problems of Sundarbans. Farm households were struggling with saline soil conditions, as land is considered one of the most important factors of agricultural production. Adding soil amendments like farmyard manure, cow dung manure, vermicompost, gypsum etc. and green manure crop mulching with Dhaincha (Sesbania aculiata), Sunn hemp (Crotalaria juncea) etc. was the major coping strategies followed by the farmers of Sundarbans. Several researchers proved the effectiveness of using organic soil amendments and gypsum for reclamation of saline soil (Tejada et al., 2006; Prapagar et al., 2012; Zhang et al., 2015; Zhu et al., 2020). Green manure crop mulching was also found to be effective for saline soil reclamation (Ansari,2008; Zhang et al., 2014; Zhao et al., 2016 ). As cow dung was easily available to the sampled household, they utilized it as an effective coping measure. Farmers of Sundarbans also used residues of crops for mulching. Though scrapping up topsoil or filling the land with good quality soil can reduce the problem of soil salinity immediately, farmers were following those practices occasionally only in case of completely damaged field soil. The cost consideration and complexity of those practices made those methods not as much acceptable as ‘adding soil amendments’ and ‘green manure crop mulching’. Soil amendment addition in the soil as well as mulching of green manure crops gave long-term solutions to the farming community of Sundarbans.
Coping Strategies With Respect To Livestock Management
Adaptability represents the key tool to improve sustainability of livestock production systems under the pressure of climate and weather factors (Nardone et al., 2010). The farm households of Sundarbans were keeping predominantly indigenous or non-descriptive cattle breeds. Farmers who were rearing crossbred animals mostly preferred Jersey crossbred animals. They preferred semen of Sahiwal or Tharparkar breeds for artificial insemination of indigenous cattle. A few farm households were also rearing buffaloes. Farmers of Sundarbans were rearing livestock to safeguard their losses from crop failure caused by extreme weather events. In that scenario, large ruminant rearing can give them long-term safety net than rearing small ruminant animals like goats. Goat breeds like Black Bengal were very popular in the region and farmers used these animals in case of requirement of liquidity, but for long-term perspective rearing cattle got more preference to overcome the threat of extreme weather events. Generally, livestock in Sundarbans is reared through a semi-intensive system. In the morning, livestock especially cattle were set loose for grazing in community land areas and in the afternoon they were fed with rice straw, the concentrated mixture in cattle shed. Due to increase in the price of rice straw and shrinkage of community grazing land caused by high demand for agricultural land, livestock farmers were forced to cultivate fodder crops. Fodder crop cultivation is also one of the established adaptation strategies for extreme weather events (Wetende et al., 2018). Perennial fodder crops like Napier (Pennisetum purpureum), hybrid Napier (Pennisetum purpureum X Pennisetum typhoides), para grass (Brachiaria mutica) and seasonal fodder crops like fodder sorghum, fodder maize, cowpea, rice bean etc. are very popular among the farming community. Farmers stored animal feed as a preparedness measure to supply their livestock during extreme weather events. Apart from that, farmers also adopted Azolla production in their backyard for feeding their livestock. Due to frequent extreme events different contagious diseases like Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD), Hemorrhagic Septicemia (HS) and Black Quarter (BQ) spread very rapidly and cause serious losses to farmers and as a result of that, farmers adopted proper vaccination schedule of livestock. Vaccination is considered one of the most effective adaptive strategies which can minimise losses (Moenga, 2016; Yadav et al., 2022; Thomas et al., 2022). Moreover, accessibility of those vaccines was very easy, and the price was also reasonable, which resulted in better adoption of vaccination as an adaptation strategy for extreme weather events. Modification in housing was one of the important adaptation strategies adopted by the farmers, though the cost involved in the modification was the major concerns. Shelter design of different livestock needs suitable modifications to prevail climate change infliction (Ambazamkandi et al., 2015). Farmers were sure about the effectiveness of the ‘modification of housing’ of livestock can ensure better protection against extreme weather events. Farm households raised the height of the floor of the cattle shed up to 1.50 feet to ensure safety from inundation of the floor from flooding. They have made certain changes like concrete or brick flooring, proper ventilation in the housing shed, installation of concrete manger etc. in the livestock shed.
Coping Strategies With Respect To Crop Production
Floods, torrential rain, cyclones, tidal waves, and rapid changes in meteorological parameters are the most frequently reported climate anomalies in the Sundarbans. The vast resource potentials of the coastal region are extracted by the farming community by adopting various adaptation strategies like land shaping, crop diversification, liming, etc., to enhance the agricultural productivity of coastal lands (Dutta et al., 2021). Adaptation strategies for extreme weather events include improved saline tolerant and/or climate resilient varieties and improved soil management through the addition of organic and chemical amendment (Padhy et al., 2022). Farmers have changed the time of sowing/ harvesting, varieties of crops, cropping patterns etc. in order to cope with extreme weather events. The major crops grown by the farmers were rice, pumpkin, bottle gourd, ridge gourd, snake gourd, okra, green chili, cabbage, cauliflower, tomato, brinjal, broad beans, beetroot, onion, bitter gourd etc. Rice varieties for rainy season like Sabita, Annada, Chiraj, Mandira, Pratima, Santoshi Maharaj etc. and for winter season Jaya, Gitanjali, Ranojit, Godabori, Bashkati, N-sankar etc. are becoming more and more popular. Varieties like Riya-834, Sarathi-044/1458/687 for tomato, Utkal, Aksita, Jita, JK 8031, UNI-407 for eggplant, Bombai, Suksagar, Jhor for onion, Radhika, Garjan Chironjibi, KSP-1203 for Okra, Eagle, Daiya, Demon,Hoji-61 for green chili, Madhubani, Madhuri, Barkha, Megha, Sathi for cauliflower, Arjun, Krishna, Paradise for pumpkin, Ansol, Purnima for bottle gourd etc. were very popular among farming communities. Farmers had also given emphasis on rotating crops as an adaptation strategy to cope with the threat of extreme weather events. Farmers changed the sowing of vegetable seed at least 10–15 days before the normal sowing time. Similarly, they had also preponed the harvesting time of the vegetable crops accordingly. Rice transplanting time has also been shifted. Alternative cropping and management practices such as double-cropping or inter-cropping, tillage and organic amendments may prove valuable for combating some of the negative effects when crops are grown in short rotation (Bennett et al., 2012).Land Shaping Technique was adopted by the farmers for efficient management of the situations that arise due to extreme weather events. A farmer can easily grow rice in a field whose height has been increased by using the soil made available by digging a farm pond in one-fifth of the farm's total farmland (in the low land area of the farm). This way, the height of the rice field can be increased up to 1-1.5 ft by using the excavated soil (Fig. 3). In addition, pond dyke can be raised by up to 3 feet, which can be used to grow vegetables or grow other plantation crops. With this method, the fallow land can be used in three different ways: the low land, which is now 1.5 feet high, can be used for rice cultivation; the bank of the pond can be planted with vegetables, and the pond can be used to raise brackish water fish or store water for vegetable cultivation during winter when there was a scarcity of water. Farmers also adopted intercropping as a coping mechanism against extreme weather events. Intercropping is multiple cropping practices involving growing two or more crops in proximity. This type of adaptation is especially applicable when the yield from a particular crop is unsatisfactory (DasGupta et al., 2019).
Coping Strategy For Fish Farming
Indian Sundarbans has a huge scope of freshwater aquaculture as many sweet water ponds and canals are unutilised till now as recent freshwater aquaculture technologies have not reached in most of the places (Sundaray et al., 2019). Flooding with saline flood water caused the greatest damage to the fish farming enterprise as freshwater fish dies in saline water, fish of pond flows out of the flooded pond etc. To avoid the fish from escaping the flooded pond, fish farmers used to put nets around the pond. Construction of a pond dyke was the best coping strategy to restrict the pond from inundation with flood water, but the cost of construction was a major source of concern for the fish farmers. Though, from a long-term perspective, they construct dyke which can be used for horticultural crop farming. The dyke–pond system creates heterogeneous landscape elements and diversity in both animal husbandry and planted crops (Liu et al., 2013). Dubey et al. (2017) also reported that, the farmers from Sundarbans, had raised the dyke's height around the pond in order to prevent fish escaping and planted various types of trees (fruit and wood trees) on the pond dykes to strengthen the dykes. Liming of pond was considered as one of the major strategies by the farming community as the process involved less expenses. To reduce the large-scale alteration of pH, increasing the alkalinity of the ponds by adding lime is one of the viable options (Chanda et al., 2022). The introduction of fishes which can survive in brackish water conditions also was being cultured in inland water bodies as part of polyculture fish farming in the Sundarbans. Polyculture is the best economical approach of aquaculture as a suitable multispecies combination allows the species to explore all the strata of water column as well as increase productivity (De et al., 2022). Generally, farmers used to culture indigenous carp like catla (Catla catla) which is a surface feeder, rohu (Labeo rohita) which is a column feeder, mrigal (Cirrhinus cirrhosus) which is a bottom feeder, and exotic species like silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix), grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) and common carp (Cyprinus carpio) for fish poly culture system. Fish species which can also survive brackish water like tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), pangas (Pangasius sutchi) catfish (Clarias batrachus), Indian seabass (Lates calcerifer) etc. were gaining popularity as an adaptive measure for extreme weather events. Freshwater fish may die in flooded brackish water conditions, though these fish species can survive in brackish water. This way some farmers were minimizing their losses and this strategy was considered as one of the important adaptation strategies for extreme weather events.