Abstract

This paper is based on qualitative fieldwork in 4 villages in northern Thailand in 2012-2013. The study focuses on the interaction between socio-economic development and climate related risk. We study local perceptions of the impacts of climate related risks and responses to these risks. The study is guided by the Forensic Investigation of Disasters (FORIN) framework with i) a critical cause analysis to identify dynamic drivers of disaster risk and ii) scenario analysis to identify disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) options. Changes in livelihood strategies have been coinciding with an increase in climate related risk during the past decade, including the increased occurrence of flash floods, landslides and drought, as perceived by interviewees. In common for all villages are that policies of state-managed forest protection leave upland communities with too little land for production and fallows, leading to disaster prone cultivation on marginal lands. We argue that national policies toward upland communities tend to reinforce land use and livelihood strategies that increase disaster risk. There is need for more integrated forms of land use, like agro-forestry, to enable a combined focus on environment- and livelihood objectives in support of climate change adaptation.

Keywords

Disaster risk, land use, uplands, Thailand, climate change adaptation, livelihoods

Published in

IDRiM journal
2015, Volume: 5, number: 1

SLU Authors

• Beckman, Malin

  • Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Social Sciences Interdisciplinary


Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/73921