Ecological Indicators 79 (2017) 338–346 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Indicators journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind Sustainable livelihood framework-based indicators for assessing climate change vulnerability and adaptation for Himalayan communities Rajiv Pandey a,∗ , Shashidhar Kumar Jha b , Juha M. Alatalo c , Kelli M. Archie d , Ajay K. Gupta a a ICFRE, Dehradun, India b HNB Garhwal University, Srinagar, India c Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, Qatar University, P.O. Box 2713, Doha, Qatar d Climate Change Research Institute, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 11 November 2016 Received in revised form 1 February 2017 Accepted 26 March 2017 Keywords: Bottom-up approach Exposure Household capital Resilience a b s t r a c t This study evaluated the climate change vulnerability of Himalayan communities, and their potential to adapt to these changes, through assessing their perceived reactions and counter-actions to climate change. The evaluation was conducted through proposing and testing indices for vulnerability (Climate Vulnerability Index – CVI) and adaptation (Current Adaptive Capacity Index – CACI) based on the assump- tion that a community is an active dynamic entity and has tremendous capability to address the impacts of climate change through an ability to make adjustments based on perceived experiences. Both CVI and CACI include the five forms of capital leading to sustainable livelihood, i.e. human, natural, financial, social and physical capital, and were assessed for each of these forms of capital based on the IPCC framework of vulnerability assessment and its three dimensions (exposure, sensitivity, adaptive capacity). Data for the analysis were collected from randomly selected households located away from district headquar- ters (ADH) and near district headquarters (NDH). Each dimension was measured based on associated socio-environment-specific indicators for assessing vulnerability and sustainability at community level. The results showed that ADH households had higher human capital and natural capital vulnerability than NDH households. In contrast, NDH households had higher social capital and financial capital vulnerability than ADH households. Overall, ADH households had greater vulnerability than NDH households. These results improve understanding of the environmental and socio-economic changes affecting rural livelihoods and the measures needed to address their specific vulnerabilities by addressing bottlenecks in education and training facilities for skill up-grading, increasing interaction opportunities through local functions and creating opportunities for income generation and effective market and farm linkages. An attempt was made to reduce the gap between bottom-up understanding and top-down policies by sug- gesting precautionary and ongoing adaptation practices for the communities studied, leading to effective and efficient addressal of vulnerabilities. Vulnerability in the study context was taken to mean externally driven change leading to disturbance in the human environment that could alter internal and external livelihood settings. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The Himalayas is a highly vulnerable region in terms of natural disasters and the effects of such disasters are further compounded by other influencing co-factors such as geographical location, ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: pandeyr@icfre.org (R. Pandey), shashidharkj@gmail.com (S.K. Jha), jalatalo@qu.edu.qa (J.M. Alatalo), kelli.archie@vuw.ac.nz (K.M. Archie). topography and unique economic, political, cultural characteristics of the region (Dolan and Walker, 2006). The increasing frequency of extreme climate events, widespread poverty, migration and marginalisation of Himalayan people make mountain communi- ties more vulnerable to climate variability (Gerlitz et al., 2016). Climate change impacts in Himalaya have already led to a loss in agri-diversity and changes in the farm cropping pattern (Negi and Palni, 2010) and an overall reduction in food production (Sinha, 2007), increasing the vulnerability of smallholder farmers (Harvey et al., 2014). However, the Himalayas region is also endowed with http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2017.03.047 1470-160X/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.