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JOURNAL OF DESERT RESEARCH ›› 2018, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (2): 428-436.DOI: 10.7522/j.issn.1000-694X.2016.00164

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Assessments of the Efficacy of Farmers' Adaptive Behaviors to Climate Change

Sun Lifan, Shi Xingmin, Wang Lu   

  1. School of Geography and Tourism, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710119, China
  • Received:2016-11-08 Revised:2016-12-26 Online:2018-03-20 Published:2018-03-20

Abstract: The impact of climate change is very significant on farmers who depend on natural resources for livelihood. It is essential to have a better assessment of the efficacy of farmers' adaptive behaviors for formulating appropriate adaptation policies and improving farmers' ability to adapt to climate change. Based on survey data from interviews with farmers in the hill and gully region of the Loess Plateau in northern Shaanxi, the characteristics of farmers' perceived adaptation efficacy was analyzed, and with the common cultivated land area and grain yield in statistical yearbook from 2000 to 2014, the effect of adaptive behavior was verified from the objective level. Three multiple linear regression models were used to analyze the efficacy of farmers' adaptive behaviors and identify factors influencing those assessments. The results are as follows:(1) In general, the adaptive behaviors with high perceived adaptation efficacy were used by most interviewees. Measures that had relatively low perceived adaptation efficacy were not commonly adopted, such as migration, buying insurance, changing planting and harvesting time. The food production of the surveyed areas rose in volatility during 2000-2014, indicating the actual effect of adaptive behaviors. (2) The key demographical and social factors of farmers' influencing assessments of the efficacy of adaptive behaviors were non-farming income, farming income, planting scale, the frequency of watching TV and going to the market and gender. Changes of the local natural disasters, the adjustment of planting and harvesting time, crop yield and diseases and insect pests caused by climate change were found to affect farmers' adaptation assessments. Average precipitation in 2005-2015 was found to influence farmers' adaptation appraisals significantly. The natural environment is not only a macroscopic factor limiting the distribution of crops, but also a driving factor for farmers to adopt micro measures.

Key words: climate change, adaptive behavior, perceived adaptation efficacy, assessments of the efficacy, the hill and gully region of the Loess Plateau, northern Shaanxi

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