The Department of Science and Technology recently launched the National Climate Vulnerability Report. According to the report, eight Eastern States in the country are highly vulnerable to climate change. They are Mizoram, Bihar, West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand and Assam.
Key Findings of the report
- The report has developed state level “vulnerability indices” over 0.42 to 0.67.
- Assam, Jharkhand and Bihar have more than 60% of districts in the category of “highly vulnerable districts”.
Vulnerability Indices
- Jharkhand received the highest Vulnerable Index of 0.67. Maharashtra received the lowest Vulnerability Index of 0.42. This means that Jharkhand is highly vulnerable to Climate Change and Maharashtra is least vulnerable.
- Jharkhand was followed by Mizoram, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Bihar and Arunachal Pradesh in the descending order of the index. They were named as “Relatively highly vulnerable state”.
- Apart from Maharashtra, the other comparatively least vulnerable states are Goa, Nagaland, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Haryana. They were named as the “Relatively Low Vulnerable states”.
- “Relatively Moderately vulnerable states” were Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Tripura, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Meghalaya. Their Vulnerability Index was between 0.42 and 0.50.
Major Drivers of Vulnerability
The states were ranked based on their drivers of vulnerability. The drivers are as follows:
- High yield-variability of food grains
- Very low coverage of crop insurance
- Prevalence of rainfed agriculture
- High incidence of vector-borne diseases
- High Proportion of Below Poverty Line population
- Prevalence of marginal and small landholdings
- Lack of forest area per 1,000 rural population
- Low road density and lack of railway network
- Low number of health care workers
- High proportion of natural resource-based income
- lack of implementation of MGNREGA
- Low road density
- Lack of rail network
- Low dependence on horticulture trees
The Rankings of the states are as follows:
Rank 1: Jharkhand
Rank 2: Mizoram
Rank 3: Odisha
Rank 4: Chhattisgarh
Rank 5: Assam
Rank 6: Bihar
Rank 7: Arunachal Pradesh
Rank 8: West Bengal
Rank 9: Uttar Pradesh
Rank 10: Tripura
Rank 11: Gujarat
Rank 12: Meghalaya
Rank 13: Jammu and Kashmir
Rank 14: Rajasthan
Rank 15: Madhya Pradesh
Rank 16: Manipur
Rank 17: Andhra Pradesh
Rank 18: Karnataka
Rank 19: Himachal Pradesh
Rank 20: Telangana
Rank 21: Sikkim
Rank 22: Punjab
Rank 23: Uttarakhand
Rank 24: Haryana
Rank 25: Tamil Nadu
Rank 26: Kerala
Rank 27: Nagaland
Rank 28: Goa
Rank 29: Maharashtra