Climate Change Perception and the Importance of Agriculture in Household Income: Evidence from India

Abstract

As climate change begins to change seasonal patterns around the world and policies are created to help and incentivize people to adapt, it is important to understand whether those that are that are affected are realizing the changes, and would take advantage of resources provided. Using data on a representative sample of 3,000 rural households from drought-prone region of Bihar, India, we investigate this assumption. Seven indicators of how households perceive climate change (whether they noted an increase in rain, more frequent droughts, more frequent floods, a delay in the start of the rainy/monsoon seasons, an increase in the number of hot days in the last five years, how the previous year’s monsoon season start date compared to previous years’ start dates, and in what month the previous year’s monsoon season began) were compared to historical weather information to determine whether they were correct. Whether or not they perceived the climate indicators correctly was then compared to whether their income sources were made up primarily of agriculture. A significant positive relationship between agriculture making up a top position in income and perception of trends in flood occurrences and number of hot days in the last five years, while a negative significant relationship was found for the perception of trends in the occurrences of drought and monsoon start dates in the previous five years. All other relationships were not significant. The evidence is not consistent across all indicators of perception of climate change and weather events.