Climate Change: Trends and Farmers Perceptions in Chepang Community of Chitwan District, Nepal

Abstract

To access the trends and farmers perception on temperature and precipitation in Chepang community, a research was conducted in Chitwan district of Nepal in the year 2016. Two VDCs, Shaktikhor and Siddhi were selected purposively and sixty households from each village were selected randomly for the study. Primary information was collected from household using semi-structured interview schedule and secondary data were collected from Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM), Kathmandu. Microsoft Excel and SPSS were used for descriptive and trend analysis. Mann Kendall test is used to determine the trend of climatic variables. 50 percent of the respondents perceived about increase in summer temperature, 37% perceived increase in winter temperature and 58% of respondent’s perceived decrease in rainfall amount. Monsoon rainfall was in decreasing (0.541 mm per year) trend and the overall trend of rainfall was also decreasing over the time (1983-2014). Maximum and minimum temperature was increased significantly over the time (1983-2014) by 0.013°C and 0.0075°C per year respectively. The analysis of climatic data strongly supports the farmer’s perception. Farmers in rural areas were still unknown about climatic change pattern; they cannot adopt adoption strategies until they will understand the climate change and its adverse impact on farming systems. The findings of this study can be useful for making effective policy and plan.