Navigating Uncertainty at the Intersection of Disaster Recovery, Development, and Climate Change: Household Vulnerabilities, Adaptative Capacities, and Future Trajectories in Rural Nepal

Abstract (English)

In rural Nepal, household and settlement recoveries from the catastrophic 2015 Nepal earthquakes and cascading effects as well as the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on mobility intersect with development initiatives, such as road building. At the same time, climate change creates unpredictable and erratic conditions that compound disaster impacts and threaten nascent development efforts. Social dynamics parallel these circumstances, including local government decentralization that created some opportunities for more equitable representation of voices in local decision-making in rural areas. Recovery pathways from these intersecting forms of social and environmental change differ by historical context, identity, hazard exposure, livelihood, and accessibility. We present mixed quantitative and qualitative research with community outreach that follows 400 rural households in four settlements over 10 years that experienced these social and environmental forms of change. Depending on identities, cash- and place-based recovery pathways emerged that were challenged by multi-faceted vulnerabilities, including historical ethnic and spatial inequalities, and facilitated by adaptive capacities, such as livelihood diversity, mutual aid, and local knowledge. As time passes, these recovery pathways merge into development trajectories that are continually forced to adapt to the erratic and intense nature of climate change threatening the viability of rural Himalayan lifeways. Transformative changes were occurring in livelihood portfolios evident in decreasing primary agropastoral livelihoods and increasing secondary cash-based livelihoods. Climatic and economic uncertainty appeared to strongly influence future household and settlement trajectories. Disaster and development planning could therefore benefit from recognizing these integrated social and environmental dynamics, especially if identified and operationalized through participatory and ethical approaches of knowledge co-production.