Climate change, risk perception, and protection motivation among high-altitude residents of the Mt. Everest region in Ne
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Climate change, risk perception, and protection motivation among high-altitude residents of the Mt. Everest region in Nepal Neelam C. Poudyal, Omkar Joshi, Donald G. Hodges, Hem Bhandari, Pramod Bhattarai
Received: 4 October 2019 / Revised: 18 November 2019 / Accepted: 14 July 2020
Abstract Mountain ecosystems are considered vulnerable to early impacts of climate change. Whether and how local residents of these areas perceive these changes, however, remain under-studied questions. By conducting a household survey in the Khumbu region of Nepal, this study assessed local residents’ experience-based perception of changes in climate trends and patterns, perceived risk, and attitudes towards climate issues. Multivariate cluster analysis based on residents’ climate change beliefs revealed three segments: ‘‘Cautious,’’ ‘‘Disengaged,’’ and ‘‘Alarmed.’’ A comparison of these segments along key psychosocial constructs of Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) revealed significant inter-segment differences in residents’ perception of severity, vulnerability, response efficacy, self-efficacy, and response cost associated with engaging in mitigating behavior. Results shed light on how residents of high elevation areas that are considered to be exposed to early impacts of climate change perceive the risk and intend to respond. These findings could also assist stakeholders working in other similar mountain ecosystems in understanding vulnerability and in working towards climate readiness. Keywords Khumbu Protection motivation Respondent segment Sherpa Vulnerability Weather pattern
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01369-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
INTRODUCTION Climate change is a major global issue affecting human and natural systems across the world. Over the years, scientists have presented consistent evidence of changing climatic conditions, increasing incidents of catastrophic weather events, and changing local weather patterns. Nevertheless, there still exists some degree of skepticism regarding climate change in certain segments of society, partly because individuals have yet to witness or fully comprehend its actual impact on their surroundings or resources they depend on (Grotta et al. 2013). Moreover, climate change is sometimes viewed as local level environmental change rather than a global phenomenon (Anisimov and Orttung 2019). Communities in rural mountain ecosystems, particularly those located at high-altitude, are considered vulnerable to climate change because of their exposure to early symptoms of climate change, sensitivity of local life resources (e.g. subsistence farming, mountain tourism), and lack of access to adaptive resources (e.g. health facilities, government programming) (Basannagari and Kala 2013). Academics and practitioners alike can learn from the local experiences of such communities by gaining a greater understanding of risk perception and then designi
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