Climate Change Adaptation for Livestock Smallholders in Gandaki River Basin, Nepal

Dr. Nir KrakauerDepartment of Civil Engineering / NOAA-CREST,

City College of New Yorknkrakauer@ccny.cuny.edu

Tarendra Lakhankar (CCNY)Soni Pradhanang (Hunter)

Ajay Jha (CSU)

GRB Situation

Frequent droughts & declining crop yields

Overstocked and unproductive livestock

Increasing water scarcity, with women & children being the worst affected

Extreme events such as flooding

Poverty

Purpose and ObjectivesPurpose: Developing an integrated approach for climate

adaptation for the rural poor (focusing on livestock sector) based on natural resource conservation and resilience building.

Objectives:

1. Understand local and regional climate change over recent decades through application of statistical methods to weather station and remote sensing data;

2. Assess the impact of past/present climate variability and change on the health and food supply of livestock raised by small farmers and herders across elevation gradients in Gandaki River Basin (GRB) through field survey; and

3. Work with and train village-based networks to devise and pilot strategies to increase resilience to climate hazards.

Study Area

Central Nepal(wide range of elevations)

Projected warming in GRB

Greater warming projected at higher elevations

Projected precipitation change

Precipitation generally projected to increase, with complex spatial pattern

Climate vulnerability: drought

Climate vulnerability: flood

Integrated climate adaptation

Combine climate science with development and capacity building work

Livestock adaptation strategies

Focus on nutrition, soil/water management for sustainable, climate-resilient productivity

Project activities1. Climate Hazard Mapping2. Stakeholders Meetings/Workshops3. Pilots Village Based Nutritional Fodder Production and

Water Management Demonstration4. Research Grant/ Internship to Graduate Students5. Training of Communities on CCA6. Surveys of Livestock Smallholders7. Researcher/Stakeholder/Students Training

1. Climate Hazard Mapping

Analyze spacetime trends in precipitation extremes

Initial work (submitted for publication):

Seek to synthesize station observations with precipitation products:

– TRMM: every 3 hours, 0.25°, since 1998

– PERSIANN: 3 hours, 0.04°, 2006-2010

– APHRODITE: daily, 0.25°, 1951-2007 (interpolated surface obs)

Nepal topography and stations

Precipitation distributionRemote sensing:TRMM

Gridded obs:APHRODITE

PERSIANN

Distribution compared to stationsBy elevation

By month(dominated by summer monsoon)

Initial conclusions TRMM product (but not PERSIANN)

reasonably captures variability of monthly precipitation, suitable for analyzing droughts

Need to extend to daily/hourly level to study flood events

2. Stakeholder Meetings/Workshops

A. District Level Consultation Workshops

• Dhading-30 October 2012• Syanja-31 October 2012• Kapilvastu- 1 November 2012

B. Inception Workshop• Kathmandu-2 November 2012

2. Stakeholder Meetings/WorkshopsC. District Level Stakeholder Meetings• Dhading-14 February 2013• Syanja-16 February 2013• Kapilvastu- 18 February 2013

D. VDC Level Consultation Workshops• Dhading

• Baireni VDC• Nilakantha VDC

• Syanja• Tindobate VDC• Setidovan VDC• Chapakot VDC

• Kapilvastu• Jayanagar VDC• Banganga VDC• Hariharpur VDC

3. Pilot Nutritional Fodder Production and Water Management Demonstrations

3 demonstration sites at different elevations testing irrigated nutritional fodder production, compost

Baireni, Dhading, Jholpe, Syanja, Gorusinghe, Kapilvastu

Weather stations at demo sites

T, q, P measured automatically and available on Web

Permit correlation with measured yields and livestock health

4. Graduate Student Research

– Saluna Pokhrel: Tickborne disease in cows– Rachana Dev: Gender perspective on livestock sector

climate change adaptation– Razan Malla: Drip vs. flood irrigation yields, water and

nutrient use efficiency– Parashuram Bhandari: Community adaptation to climate

extremes

5. Training Communities for Climate Change Adaptation

Training on making hay, silage, mineral block, urea molasses• Dhading, Syanja, Kapilvastu

6. Surveys of Livestock Smallholders

Baseline Surveys16-20 May 2013

7. Training of Researchers/Officials/Students

Remote Sensing and Climate Hazard Mapping27-31 May, Kathmandu(Octave-centric)

More Trainings for Second and Third Year

Thank You