Abstract:

From the micro perspectives of individual farmers, we aim to study perception and adaptation of farmers who act as the subject of agricultural activities to climate change. The hilly and gully areas of northern Shaanxi are selected as the study area, using empirical analysis of questionnaires survey combined with semistructured interview method, in order to examine farmers’ perception and adaptation to climate change and investigate factors that influence farmers’ adaptive activities through binary logistic regression model. The results show that farmers’ perception of climate change tendency is relatively consistent, that summer temperature and winter temperature have increased in recent 5 years, and precipitation has decreased. But there are some deviations from the observation data. The proportion of farmers who have taken adaptive measures is not very high, only 57.8% of respondents have adjusted their farming practices to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Farmers’ adaptive behaviors are affected by their perception of climate change. Social-economical characteristics of household have significant impact on farmers’ adaptive activities. However, there is little relationship between farmers’ adaptive behaviors with household demographic characteristics, such as gender, age and education level.

Key words: climate change, perception, adaptation behavior, hilly and gully area of northern Shaanxi