Rice Farmers’ Climate Change Adaptation in Nepal: Exploring Linkage to Water Availability and Water Sharing Practice

This paper analyzes the availability of water, irrigation and water sharing practices as options of climate change adaptation by rice farmers in rural Nepal. By applying multi-stage sampling techniques, in order to select the sample district to households, 28 wards from 14 VDC of 7 Districts of Nepal have been selected. 773 rice farmers from both rural Terai and rural Hills have been enquired based on the structured questionnaire at the month of December and January 2017. Further, logistic regression has been applied to analyze the data. Our result revealed that, rice farmers have different opinions regarding adaptation options as out of 773 rice farmers only 73.7% farmers are adopting available adaptation options. Such adaptations practiced measured 55% on hilly district and 94% in Terai, which show Hilly farmers still have less adaptation practice than in Terai. Alternative irrigation as an adoption option is sixth in ranking due to its adaptation cost - it is the most costly adaptation option that takes NRs. 7914. Logistic result shows that there are several factors like gender (0.726***), total farmland (0.391***), income (7.380*), credit and (1.756***) increase the probability use of alternative water resources while irrigation facilities (-2.693***) and trainings (-1.064*) decrease such probability. Similarly, water sharing practice is found common in Hilly belt where in Terai it is comparatively less. Such water sharing featured communal in all respect and helps to share water among the farmers as per their need basis.