- Climate adaptation is highly understudied in India, with the term often being mentioned without capturing details or impacts.
- A review of hundreds of papers on adaptation, published from 2017-2023, found that only 28 analysed adaptation measures adequately. Of these, most focused on agriculture, followed by water, coastal, urban and forestry sectors.
- Limitations identified by the review include localised approaches that may not be scalable to broader contexts, a lack of gender perspectives, and several research gaps.
This year, India’s Economic Survey dedicated an entire chapter to the importance of climate adaptation, citing the Global Climate Risk Index that ranked India as the seventh most vulnerable country to climate change in the world. Implementing effective adaptation strategies, the survey said, “will necessitate a multi-faceted approach that includes policy initiatives, sector-specific strategies, development of resilient infrastructure, research and development, and securing financial resources.”
But a review of existing research into climate adaptation in India finds that not only is adaptation highly understudied, it’s also poorly understood among researchers in the country. Only 28 peer-reviewed research papers published between 2017 and 2023 focussed on climate adaptation measures, while hundreds of others used the term “cursorily.” Climate adaptation refers to the process of adjusting to the environmental, social, and economic impacts of climate change.
Researchers from Wageningen University, Netherlands and the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, conducted a literature review to gauge the progress of climate adaptation in India. “Our initial screening gave us 400 to 500 papers, but most of the articles mentioned climate adaptation without really capturing the details or the impact of these measures, so we screened them out,” said Sumit Vij, lead author of the study and Assistant Professor, Sociology of Development and Change at Wageningen University.
Much of the discussion on climate adaptation revolves around lack of finance, since adaptation requires investments that don’t always guarantee returns. The findings of the literature review, however, provide a glimpse into the qualitative aspects of academic research into climate adaptation, while also indicating research gaps.
Research not gender focussed
The review focuses only on peer-reviewed research published in scientific journals between 2017 and 2023, capturing newer literature that is not covered in the latest round of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. It also captures studies that emerged after the discourse on adaptation became more nuanced.
Since 2015, adaptation literature has distinguished between two types of adaptation: incremental – smaller adjustments that help maintain the integrity of a system in the face of climate change – and transformative – changing the fundamental attributes of a socio-ecological system in anticipation of climate change impacts. The distinction helps ascertain how certain measures impact adaptation over the long and short terms.
In India, however, there is “a lack of clarity on how incremental and transformative measures are understood and explained,” the review says.
The review screened out studies that were not peer-reviewed, not in English, and that did not include substantial information about climate adaptation. Of the studies that met the criteria – 28 studies in total – most focussed on the agriculture sector (19 studies). This was followed by the water (6), coastal (3), urban (3) and forestry (3) sectors.
Regionally, the studies came from states like Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh. “Notably, vulnerable states in northeast India have had little focus in the publications, with only a single article focusing on Assam,” says the study.
The focus on adaptation in the agriculture sector in climate research could be because of its contribution to the country’s economy, said Vivek Venkatramani, Associate Program Director of Climate Resilience Practice at the World Resources Institute India, who was not part of the study. “In larger sectors, there is a tendency to look for measures that include both adaptation and mitigation together. The focus on adaptation in agriculture could be explained by the fact that agriculture is widely practiced, with the potential for mitigation actions too,” he said.
Most studies also focussed on measures that were at a village or district level, which “poses challenges for policymakers, as findings from localised research may not always be scalable or applicable to broader regional and national contexts.” Several studies “do not assess how successful the implemented adaptations were,” and there was an “inconsistency and lack of clarity in how adaptation is defined and how the types of adaptation (incremental and transformative) are understood in literature,” the study adds.
The review also noted that studies are not adequately gender disaggregated. “Existing discussions suggest the need for gender sensitivity, but literature does not delve deeply into quality of women’s participation in decision-making and nuances relating to maladaptation if adaptation measures are only focused towards men,” it says.
Climate adaptation
The literature review isn’t alone in suggesting adaptation is not comprehensively understood or measured in India. A 2024 report by the think-tank Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) on scaling up adaptation finance noted that in India, adaptation is often seen as a “co-benefit” of sustainable development.
While schemes and programmes that can deliver on both exist, “the absence of evidence and common methodologies for evaluating the extent to which these address climate risk makes it onerous to distinguish adaptation from development,” the CPI report says, adding, “Without a common understanding of what constitutes adaptation, ‘good’ development often tends to be equated with adaptation action.”
Without a clear understanding of what constitutes adaptation, measuring its impact becomes challenging. “There’s a serious dearth of knowledge about how to measure adaptation in a simple yet robust manner,” said Venkatramani of WRI.
Vij says the literature review offers insights into the sectors and regions that should be the focus of climate adaptation research in the future. “We need a lot more studies done on gender, and in regions like the north east. We just don’t see enough studies done in those areas,” he said.
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Banner image: Wind turbines in Gujarat. Without a clear understanding of what constitutes climate adaptation, measuring its impact is a challenge. Image by Vinayaraj via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
