Climate change has been emerging as a serious challenge threatening all economies in several regions worldwide. The unpredictable behaviour of climate change stems from an unprecedented surge in global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Due to its physical location, India is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This is due to the fact that India is heavily relying on agriculture for economic sustenance. The Indian state of Himachal Pradesh is no exception to it. Variations in climatic events, such as temperature, precipitation, droughts, and snowfall, significantly impact agricultural productivity in Himachal Pradesh. Over the course of time the production has declined with fluctuations in precipitation or elevated temperatures, leading to decreased agricultural income in the state. The present study aims to explore socio-ecological Vulnerabilities and the impact of extreme weather Events on crop diversification in Himachal Pradesh. This study considers three regions of Himachal Pradesh, including the Greater Himalayas, the Mid/Inner Himalayas, and the Outer Himalayas. The data was collected between 13 th August 2024 to 28 th November 2024. Using the multistage random sampling method, the study collected data from 1500 households. To estimate socio-ecological vulnerability exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity indices are constructed. Furthermore, OLS and Tobit Model were used to identify key determinants of Socioecological Vulnerability and the Logit model was applied to estimate the impact of extreme weather events and climatic risk on crop diversification. The study observed notable differences in exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity to climate change among the six sample districts in Himachal Pradesh. Different districts have different adaptive capacities, which affects their overall socio-ecological vulnerability even though all of them exhibit high exposure and moderate sensitivity. Using the Tobit model, the study found that in the outer Himalayas and in the overall model, small farmers are statistically and significantly more vulnerable at the 10% and 5% levels, respectively. However, socioecological vulnerability of large farmers increased statistically at 1% level of significance across all regions. The use of chemical fertilizers (CF) significantly increases socio-ecological vulnerability in all regions statistically at the 1% level of significance. The number of unemployed (UMP) in a household highly and significantly increased socioecological vulnerability at the 1% level across all regions. Agricultural training in all regions shows statistically negative effects at the various level of significance. Furthermore, adoption of any climate change adaptation measures has a mixed vulnerability impact. Highly fragmented land shows a significant increase in socioecological vulnerability in the overall region at a 1% significance level. Additionally, various determinants significantly influence crop diversification. Socio-economic characteristics, a farmer’s expertise in agriculture, the quantity of crop cultivation, and the utilization of chemical fertilizers strongly influence crop diversification tactics. Furthermore, climatic conditions, short-term regional climatic changes, long-term climate change, planting schedules, the duration of the growing season, and elevated temperatures combined with erratic precipitation influenced crop diversification significantly. The study suggests that the policymakers should give high priority to strengthening adaptive capacities through focused interventions like increased availability of financial resources, extension services, and climate-resilient technology. Additionally, to maintain agricultural yield, it is imperative to use resilient management approaches that improve water and fertilizer efficiency.
Dalei et al. (Sun,) studied this question.