Coping strategies of the farming communities in the Indian Sundarbans region to adapt with frequent extreme weather events

Abstract Frequent extreme weather events result in huge economic losses for farming communities in Sundarbans region, which threatens the livelihood security of smallholder farming communities. Different agricultural enterprises in the region are facing continuous threats due to saline water intrusion, crop losses due to heavy rain, and flooding. To overcome these problems, the farming community have adopted several coping mechanisms to sustain their livelihood against the continuous threat of extreme weather events. This paper focuses on the coping mechanism followed by the farming community in the Sundarbans region of India. Primary data were collected from randomly selected 1200 farmers from six blocks of Sundarbans. Farm households who were engaged in different agricultural enterprise like cultivating field crops, livestock rearing, fish farming were selected as respondents for the study. Analytical Hierarchy Process was applied to prioritize the coping mechanism as followed by the farming communities. The coping mechanisms were assessed on the basis of ease of implementation, cost involved, effectiveness as well as durability of the strategy for long-term application. Effectiveness and durability of the coping strategy got the highest weights of 0.492 and 0.309, respectively. Coping mechanisms pertaining to managing soil health against soil salinity, raising livestock and fish species as well as cultivating field crops were identified and prioritized according to the perceived benefit of the mechanism against extreme weather events. These coping mechanisms after proper fine-tuning can help in formulating strong and sustainable development policies for agricultural and allied sectors in the Sundarbans region of India.