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Rural women around the globe, increasingly face the challenges to adapt to various
impacts of climate change and natural disasters. Also, there have been large differences
between men and women in terms of impacts, vulnerabilities, and capacity to adapt to these
challenges. Moreover, depending on individuals’ access to resources, assets, information,
services, and decision-making power, the extent of vulnerability can be known. Here comes
the importance of vulnerability assessment of rural women who have less access to resources,
at the same time depends natural resources for their living.
Kerala state, lying along the coastline of Arabian sea, is considered as a risky zone to
flood impacts and anticipated risk. With 3000 mm of yearly rainfall, there is heavy discharges
in rivers that leads to floods. Floods are considered as a major and most frequent hazard in the
state with about 14.8% of the area prone to flooding and 52% of the population being
vulnerable to flood impacts. Floods result in fatalities, losses in property and infrastructure,
making most of the rural sector vulnerable especially, children, adolescent girls and women.
Besides, rural women help to fulfil the basic needs of their families, dealing with flood
incidence and at the same time with the impacts of natural disasters. Furthermore, rural women
also contribute their perspectives on flood forecasts, preparedness, and mitigation techniques.
With this background, the study entitled ‘Flood Vulnerability of Rural Women – An
Indicator-based Approach’ was conducted among rural women of Kerala in 2021-22. The
objectives of the research were; assessment of Flood Vulnerability for Rural Women (FVIRW)
in flood-prone Agro-Ecological Units (AEUs) of Kerala; development of Flood Vulnerability
Index (FVIRW) for AEUs; analysis of the dimensions of FVIRW in AEUs; assessment of rural
women’s perception on change to various climatic parameters and delineation of flood
adaptation strategies followed by them. The study was based on the primary data collected
through personal interviews using a well-structured interview schedule. Multistage sampling
method was used for the selection of locale and respondents. The field study was conducted
among the rural women of two specific AEUs; namely Pokkali Land (AEU 5) in Ernakulam
and Kuttanadu (AEU 4) in Kottayam. Hundred respondents from Pokkali lands and Kuttanadu
each were selected randomly, totaling 200 respondents, which constituted the sample size of
the study.
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For the socio-economic profiling of the rural women respondents, the variables selected
were age, means of livelihood, education and family size. Based on the results obtained, it was
found that in case of Pokkali, 86 per cent of the respondents belonged to young age (<35
category), and vast majority of the respondents were relying on secondary occupation for their
livelihood (63%). Only 42 per cent of the respondents had higher secondary level of education.
And majority of the respondents (78%) had a medium-sized family with 4-6 members. In case
of Kuttanadu, 83 per cent of the respondents belonged to young age (<35 category), and vast
majority of the respondents were having secondary occupation as their livelihood (54%). Only
26 per cent and 25 per cent of the respondents had higher secondary and high school level of
education respectively. And majority of the respondents (52%) had a medium-sized family
with 4-6 members.
For the purpose of flood vulnerability assessment of rural women, a composite
index (FVIRW) was developed based on the framework of CVIRFT (Sathyan et al., 2018) and
LVI (Hahn et al., 2009). The index is scaled from ‘0 to 1’, i.e., from least vulnerable to most
vulnerable. The FVIRW was developed based on three dimensions of vulnerability viz.,
Adaptive capacity, Sensitivity and Exposure, under which 9 major components and 70
indicators were selected based on literature review, expert opinion and location specificity. Of
the 39 indicators, 12 were developed for the study specifically for the respondents and location.
Based on the FVIRW value obtained, rural women in both Pokkali (0.569) and
Kuttanad (0.554) were coming under highly vulnerable condition. Considering the dimensional
values, in case of Pokkali, the sensitivity dimension had higher index value (0.687) followed
by the exposure dimension (0.679) and adaptive capacity (0.471). In case of Kuttanadu, the
exposure dimension had higher value (0.687) followed by sensitivity dimension (0.647) and
adaptive capacity (0.464). Overall, both the AEUs had a high level of flood vulnerability
towards rural women.
Assessment of perception in change of climatic parameters based on perception
index revealed that, majority of the rural women (91%) were found to have a high degree of
perception towards changes in various climatic parameters like temperature, rainfall pattern,
flood frequency, and river proximity.
For the purpose of analyzing adaptation strategies followed by the rural women,
nine strategies selected based on a review of literature were analyzed for their frequency of use
by the respondents, and the results indicated ‘doorway barriers’ and ‘constructing houses on
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concrete pillars’, ‘elevated shelfs’ strategies as the most commonly used, followed by ‘placing
sandbags across the boundary of the house’. Region specific adaptation strategies followed by
the respondents were also derived.
Though the rural women were found to be better at perceiving and adapting to
changes in climatic and flood parameters, there were components that needed further attention
which contributed to their vulnerability. In the study area, neither formal-informal disaster
education nor training was so far done. They haven’t received any warning or directions to
move away from riverine flood affected areas. Local authorities and NGOs should educate the
rural women in both AEUs on flood impacts and various adaptation strategies through training
and workshops. Most influential interventions to reinforce the components such as sociodemographic profile, livelihood strategies, socio-economic assets, water, health and food under
the purview of adaptive capacity and sensitivity should be identified by households, local
communities and the government.
To improve these components, various policy level suggestions announcing schemes
for better standards of living, employment opportunities for the rural women and poverty
alleviation, promoting homestead gardening, micro-loans availability, linking women
organizations to cooperative institutions, conducting trainings on flood risk management and
technology adoption, ensuring water supply and insurance policy modification to include assets
loss due to floods must be addressed with the greatest importance. Policies for inducing
entrepreneurial and work enthusiastic behaviour among rural women, policies and subsidies
for acquiring flood insurances for lost property assets, establishment of crisis management
office for better resilience to floods and preparing a flood hazard map for the region are
essential in both AEUs. In addition, providing better quality and sufficient quantity of water
during floods, providing access to potable water facilities and easy access to water sources,
construction of health clinic and establishing health camps, providing better sanitation facility
to the women during relief time and promoting awareness on health consciousness and various
diseases after flood may be implemented. And, the results presented and prepared in this study
may be helpful to governmental organizations for planning different mitigation measures and
specific intervention strategies to reduce the vulnerability of rural women.
Even though the FVIRW was developed specifically for the rural women of Pokkali and
Kuttanad AEUs, it can be extended to assess the flood vulnerability in similar AEUs of India
and other flood prominent regions globally with necessary modifications in the selection of
indicators based on the location and context. The present study analysed the flood vulnerability
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of 200 rural women, comprised of 70 indicators and 9 major components. But this framework
can also be further extended to a larger sample size. The findings of the study suggest that more
vulnerability studies should be carried out to highlight other vulnerable areas of Kerala so that
more area specific flood vulnerable and climate change policies related to rural women can be
formulated.