Climate Change and Adaptive Strategies for Community Resilience: Insights from the Kamala River Basin, Nepal

Climate change poses an escalating threat to riverine communities worldwide, with flooding remaining the most pervasive and disruptive hazard across Nepal’s river basins. Despite the growing body of climate adaptation research, empirically grounded evidence on how local understanding of climate change shape adaptive practices and community resilience across heterogeneous socio-ecological and geographic contexts remains limited. This study examined how residents of two municipalities, Siraha and Dudhauli across Kamala River Basin, perceive climate change and climate-induced disasters, and how these understanding influence the nature and distribution of local adaptation responses. Drawing on a mixed-methods research design that integrates household surveys with in-depth qualitative interviews and focus group discussions, this study explored community understandings of climate risks and the strategies adopted to cope with and adapt to recurrent hazards across contrasting ecological and socio-economic settings. The findings revealed that while communities are aware of climate change, understanding varies across locations, with deforestation and land-use changes commonly identified as underlying drivers. Adaptation strategies are largely reactive and short-term, constrained by limited access to early warning systems, weak institutional coordination, and inadequate climate education. Long-term and transformative measures, such as livelihood diversification, land-use planning, and community preparedness remain underdeveloped, especially in the marginalized communities. The study addresses a critical research gap by the integrated analysis of community’s understanding about climate change, institutional access, and local socio-ecological dynamics to figure out adaptive capacity across geographically and socially diverse settings.