Abstract ID: 3.11820 | Accepted as Talk | Talk | TBA | TBA

The present study investigates the people’s perception of climate change and its observed impact on agriculture in the Suru valley of the Ladakh region. Due to less number of weather monitoring stations in the region, it is difficult to get daily weather data for the region. In such a scarce climate data region, the ERA5 data was used as an alternative to understanding the annual temperature and precipitation trends. Further, the study explored the perceived climate change and its impacts by collecting data from 270 households and a few in-depth interviews. An increasing trend of temperature and decreasing trend of precipitation was observed. We found that most people perceived climatic changes like less snowfall, less rainfall, high temperature, erratic rainfall, and erratic snowfall in the region, which significantly impacted staple crop production such as barley buckwheat and wheat. However, a gender difference was observed in the perception of climate change. To cope with climate change, people changed their cropping patterns, used pesticides and chemical fertilizers to increase production, and shifted their profession from agriculture to income-based jobs.