Livelihood vulnerability of dryland communities in Indonesia

What is it about?

How vulnerable are the livelihoods of dryland communities to increasing changes in climate? We developed a series of indicators and constructed a composite index to measure the vulnerability of dryland communities. We collected data through household surveys across three communities in dryland West Timor (n = 627). We found that livelihood vulnerability of dryland communities can be assessed from six components: (i) educational attainment (EDU); (ii) children participation in agricultural activities (CPA); (iii) agricultural income (AI); (iv) subsistence food reserve (SUBSIST) ; (v) social-cultural participations (SCP); and (vi) access to water, health facility and market (ACC). Of all these six components, SCP, AI and CPA correlate the most to livelihood vulnerability index in all three communities. This signifies that in facing climate change, constraints to engage in social gatherings, to market the harvest and to obtain additional labour input are currently the major contributors to the vulnerability of these communities.

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Why is it important?

Advantages and disadvantages, as well as the way to overcome problems of composite index are discussed.