Abstract

Author:
Dipankar Das, Krishna Barman, Ranjan Roy

Doi: 10.26480/efcc.01.2025.18.24

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

In the present scenario, Climatic variability and Climate change have an increasing impact on biodiversity, human health, and livelihoods over the Himalayan Mountain belt. This approach was adopted and extended to the Darjeeling Himalaya conducting 353 household surveys, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), and Key Informant Interviews (KII). A perception studies and an empirical analysis with scientific evidence was prepared using valid historical datasets based on nature and elements of climate with serious environmental and social consequences. Over the last 40 years, the increasing trend of temperature with irregular and erratic events of rainfall is the common sensitivity across the elevation. Local people at different elevations have perceived various consequences due to climate change i.e. less water availability in agriculture with drying up of water sources, less livestock productivity, introducing new crop pests, etc. From the present study, the outcomes were obtained to provide proper and significant information to decision-makers and policy planners in the climate-sensitive areas of Darjeeling Himalaya.