Assessment of the flood-induced loss and damage to agricultural crops in Rajapur Bardiya

More frequent and severe extreme climate events have caused economic and non-economic losses and damages to local communities living in disaster-prone areas due to climate change. This study sought to understand the economic loss and damage to agriculture caused by the unseasonal flood that occurred on October 18–20, 2021 in the Rajapur Municipality alongside the bank of the Karnali River. The lower region of the Karnali basin where Rajapur Municipality lies often experiences floods. The Municipality is situated in between the two arms of the Karnali River and has a long history of flooding. Based on the household survey, FGD, KII, and secondary literature, the region witnessed floods in the years 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2020, and 2021. The study was mainly focused on the loss and damages experienced by small, medium, and large farmers residing along the bank of the Karnali River. The loss and damage were estimated mainly based on the proposed indicators by BIPAD (Building Information Platform against Disaster) in the agricultural sector. The selected indicators were agricultural land, paddy production, stored grains, livestock, and farm machinery. In 2021 October, due to the flooding event in Rajapur, the small farmers had a total economic loss of $ 21709.769 and medium farmers had a total economic loss of $50225.239 and large farmers had a total economic loss of 32393.491 in the agricultural sector. Among these production loss was $45888.774 in total.

From the people’s perception, the 2021 October flood was the worst hit flood in terms of agricultural loss and damages as the flood swept away the paddy that was ready to be harvested. Small and medium farmer’s livelihood, income, and food security were found greatly impacted in compare to the large farmers. The study tried to explore the coping mechanisms of how the different farmers were coping with the loss and damages to support their livelihood and food security. They are dealing with L&D related to food security and income by buying rice, consuming wheat, education abandonment, loan taking, doing labor work, cultivating spring season rice, etc. The study also found that the adaptation measures like early warning system and embankment have helped them to prevent human casualties, however, it is challenging to control agriculture-based L&D.