Maria Guadarrama
Dr. Goetze
POLS 3100
14 April 2015
Vulnerability to Climate Change in India
Summary of India
India is located in the northern hemisphere of the globe, south Asia. The subcontinent of
India can be easily located as the peninsula is surrounded by the three major water
bodies; Arabian Sea to the west, Indian Ocean to the south, and the Bay of Bengal to the
east. India is the world's 7th largest country, its territory measures 1.3 million square
miles. The plains of the Ganges and the Indus, about 2,400 kilometers (1500 miles) long
and on average about 280 kilometers (175 miles) wide, are formed by the basins of 3
river systems of the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra Rivers. These fertile basins
are among the most densely populated areas in the world. To point out that these basins
would be where most of an impact would be visible from the changes of climate change.
The current population is 1.29 billion and counting.
Vulnerability has emerged as a cross-cutting theme in research on the human dimensions
of global environmental change. A vulnerability to agriculture shows that India could experience
warmer and wetter conditions as a result of climate change, particularly if the summer monsoon
becomes more intense (Mitra et al., 2002; Kumar et al., 2002; McLean et al., 1998). However,
increased rates of evapotranspiration due to the higher temperatures may offset the increased
precipitation, leading to negative impacts on soil moisture (Kumar and Parikh, 2001). There are
also considerable uncertainties associated with climate model projections of tropical monsoon
behavior, and simulations that include sulfate aerosol forcing indicate decreasing summer
monsoon rainfall (Bagla, 2002; Webster et al., 1998; Lal et al., 1995). Although the direct
temperature and CO2 effects of climate change may lead to productivity increases for some
irrigated crops (Aggarwal and Mall, 2002), there is general consensus that major agricultural
production areas are likely to be adversely affected by climate change, particularly in areas that
become increasingly water-stressed (Dinar, 1998; Kumar and Parikh, 2001; Lal et al., 1998;
Gadgil, 1995).
Vulnerability to climate change is generally understood to be a function of a range of
biophysical and socioeconomic factors. The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) provides a useful typology suggesting that vulnerability may be
characterized as a function of three components: adaptive capacity, sensitivity, and exposure
(McCarthy et al., 2001).

Adaptive capacity describes the ability of a system to adjust to actual or expected climate
stresses, or to cope with the consequences. It is considered “a function of wealth,
technology, education, information, skills, infrastructure, access to resources, and
stability and management capabilities” ( McCarthy et al., 2001, p. 8).

Sensitivity refers to the degree to which a system will respond to a change in climate,
either positively or negatively.

Exposure relates to the degree of climate stress upon a particular unit of analysis; it may
be represented as either long-term changes in climate conditions, or by changes in climate
variability, including the magnitude and frequency of extreme events.
Factors that play a role in the presence or lack of community involvement to lessen climate
change are such things as; levels of human and social capital provide basic indicators of the
economic endowments of the district and of the capacity for the communities in a district to
engage in collective economic and social activities and technological factors consisted of the
availability of irrigation and quality of infrastructure.
The multiple meanings of vulnerability are attributable, at least in part, to its relative newness
as an area within climate change research. Research on vulnerability to climate change extends
impacts research. Impacts are typically assessed on natural systems and managed resource
systems, such as agriculture. Vulnerability-resilience assessment focuses on societal systems and
individual humans. This difference in emphasis parallels the difference between research into
climate change, which has typically focused on physico-chemical systems, and sustainability
research, which has emphasized social systems (see Cohen et al., 1998; Robinson and Herbert,
2000).
Among the most significant impacts of vulnerability to climate change in India, are
Monsoons. to be continued…
Vulnerability to India (as a developing country) in climate change do to drought or
because economies are dependant on the production and export of fossil fuels
WORKS CITED
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937800400010X
Read more:http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Asia-and-the-Pacific/India.html
MODELING VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE TO CLIMATE
CHANGE: A CASE STUDY OF INDIA AND INDIAN STATES
ANTOINETTE L. BRENKERT and ELIZABETH L. MALONE
Joint Global Change Research Institute, College Park, 8400 Baltimore Avenue, Suite 201,
College Park, MD 20740, U.S.A.
E-mail: e.malone@pnl.gov
Assessing Vulnerability to Climate Change in India
Architesh Panda
Economic and Political Weekly
Vol. 44, No. 16 (Apr. 18 - 24, 2009), pp. 105-107
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40279163
Page Count: 3
http://www.rural21.com/uploads/media/R21_Impact_of_melting_glaciers_in_the_Himalaya_040
9.pdf