Participatory Mapping for Drought

Resilience in Jalna District,

Maharashtra, India

20th March 2013

European Climate Change Adaptation Conference (ECCA)

Hamburg

Work in progress

Line J. Barkved (NIVA), Armando LaMadrid (CICERO),

Ulka Kelkar (TERI), Karianne deBruin (CICERO),

Guro Aandahl (NIBR), Suruchi Bhadwal (TERI), Trond Vedeld (NIBR)

• Pilot project: Extreme Risks, Vulnerabilities and Community-Based Adaptation (EVA) in India (2012-14)

• A need to better understand the perspectives and responses of local communities and policymakers to plan for changes in climatic extremes

• Interdisciplinary approach using top-down (modeling) &

bottom-up participatory approaches • 9 rural villages in the drought-prone Jalna district,

Maharashtra, India

EVA project

Focus

• How can rural communities in Maharashtra adapt to extreme drought?

• Does participatory mapping serve a useful tool to understand local experiences and perceptions and foster community-based adaptation to extreme drought?

Extreme drought and adaptation

• Droughts are a natural phenomena

• Climate change may alter magnitude and frequency of extreme droughts

• Understanding and managing changing risks

• Building resilience is essential - the capacity to deal with change

SREX (2012)

UNISDR (2009)

Drought – a multi-dimensional phenomena

(Source: National Drought Mitigation Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, U.S.A.)

• A set of approaches and techniques that

combines tools of modern cartography with

participatory methods to represent the spatial

knowledge of local communities1

• Different types from low tech (mapping on the

ground) to more high tech (PGIS)

• Typical applications in literature:

• resource mapping, natural resource management,

forest, floods.

• less on participatory drought mapping

Participatory mapping

1: source: http://www.mappingforrights.org/

Level of precision

(source: McCall 2006)

Depends on the objective Who is it important for, and why?

Jalna district, Maharashtra, India

Jalna district

3 clusters: Bhokardan, Jafrabad, Badnapur. 3 villages in each clusters Dryland, drought prone Semi-arid monsoon climate, erratic rainfall Fall in groundwater level (1998-2007) Agricultural livelihood - Cash crops include in particular cotton

Source:http://jalna.nic.in/

2012-2013: worst drought since 1972

• Photo-mapping with satellite imagery printed on A0-sized posters • Groups of 8-12 persons with facilitation

• Sequence of events

- Sep 2012: Introduction to the activity in the villages Community resource mapping - Digitizing of first mapping

- Feb 2013: Validating of digitization with the community Mapping of drought zones - Digitizing of second mapping - Validating with the community, and evaluation of adaptation options

Participatory drought mapping

Sep 2013: Resource mapping

• Showed interest in the satellite images • Mapping the villages boundary was an engaging and tedious task -

discussions • Different experiences in terms of participation between the

villages

Feb 2013: Mapping drought zones

• Discussing drought and mapping drought zones • Drought associated with water availability • Spatial variances associated with soil quality • In most of the groups, one or two often did most of the drawing

Facilitation

How much? Who speaks? Who is “holding the pen”?

Applied as part of an integrated study

with a variety of approaches and tools

Field measurements

Household survey and interviews

Secondary data and modeling

Other participatory tools

GIS

Participatory mapping

From Moser & Ekstrom (2010)

Theoretical context

Key points - what have we learned so far?

• Visualizing community members spatial knowledge provide insight of

local variations in perceptions and experienced impacts and vulnerabilities to drought

• Satellite imagery provided a form of familiarization and intuitiveness

• Mapping as a process – about more than the map itself. A base for dialogue

• Maps are not neutral objects separate from the social context • Ethical concerns – the power of maps, role of facilitation

• “Activation” of local knowledge

Thank you for your attention

Contact: Line Barkved (NIVA) - line.barkved@niva.no

EVA Project leader: Trond Vedeld (NIBR) - trond.vedeld@nibr.no

EVA website: www.teriin.org/projects/eva