good paper, but needs dada's support

-lots of statistical analysis

Environmental Science and Policy 123 (2021) 114–130

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Environmental Science and Policy

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envsci

Vulnerability assessment of coastal fishing communities for building

resilience and adaptation: Evidences from Tamil Nadu, India
Thavasiyandi Umamaheswari a, Gopalrajan Sugumar a, *, Pandian Krishnan b, *, Pachampalayam
Shanmugam Ananthan c, Arur Anand d, Jeyapaul Joyson Joe Jeevamani e,
Ranganalli Somashekharappa Mahendra f, John Amali Infantina e, Cherukumalli Srinivasa Rao b
a
Fisheries College and Research Institute, Tamil Nadu Dr. J. Jayalalithaa Fisheries University (TNJFU), Thoothukudi, 628 008, India
b
ICAR-National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM), Rajendra Nagar, Hyderabad, 500 030, Telangana, India
c
ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education (CIFE), Versova, Mumbai, 400 061, India
d
Regional Remote Sensing Centre, National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), ISRO, Nagpur, 440 033, India
e
National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Anna University Campus, Chennai, 600 025,
India
f
Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Ministry of Earth Sciences, Hyderabad, 500 090, India

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The coastal communities are the most vulnerable to climate vagaries, which affect their habitat and livelihood
Cumulative vulnerability alike. Vulnerability assessments undertaken using quantitative or qualitative methods at macro- or micro-level
Socio-economic vulnerability need to capture the location and context so as to be able to use them towards improving mitigation and resil­
Sensitivity
ience strategies at the community level, where the impact is felt. The characteristics of the marine fishing villages
Adaptive capacity
differ from those of other villages in any coastal block / district in a State, making a strong case for a marine
Fisheries
Bottom-up approach village-specific vulnerability assessment as well as intervention planning. This work, capturing this grassroots
Alternate livelihood activity reality and deriving vulnerability indicators that affect fisheries and coastal households, pilots a novel socio-
economic vulnerability (SEVIPH) and cumulative vulnerability (CVIPH) framework in marine fishing villages of
Thoothukudi, a coastal district of Tamil Nadu in India, and compares it with an existing framework (SEVISV) that
relies on secondary data. A set of 54 indicators reflecting vulnerability components such as exposure, sensitivity
(fishery and social) and adaptive capacity (economic, development drivers and alternate livelihood activity) has
been developed. Primary data were collected from 1741 households residing in all the 24 marine fishing villages
in Thoothukudi district to estimate various sub-indices and indices of SEVIPH, SEVISV and CVIPH. Significant
differences (p < 0.01) in sensitivity index (SI) and adaptive capacity index (ACI) were observed among the
fishing villages, which however, got masked at taluk and district level due to aggregation, underscoring the
importance of household based village level assessment of vulnerability. Overall, 42 % of the fishing villages
were socio-economically highly vulnerable, while about 71 % of the villages had high cumulative vulnerability
index. While the overall social and economic status of fishing households were lower compared to non-fishing
population, it could be ascertained that there was relatively less inequity among them. The study also found
significant disparities and differences (p < 0.05) across the villages/taluks in terms of exposure, sensitivity as
well as socio-economic capabilities to respond, adapt and develop resilience. The two dimensional decision
matrix plotted against SI and ACI median threshold values presented a greater contrast and helped in identifying
the key drivers (or contributing factors) and buffers (or ameliorating factors) for coastal vulnerability of marine
fishing villages to aid in location-specific intervention planning. The study also highlighted the need for
imparting need-based location-specific training programmes at the village and taluk level for vulnerability
reduction.

* Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: umamaheshwari@tnfu.ac.in (T. Umamaheswari), sugumar@tnfu.ac.in (G. Sugumar), krishnanars@yahoo.com (P. Krishnan), ananthanps@
gmail.com (P.S. Ananthan), anand_isro@rediffmail.com (A. Anand), joyjoejee87@yahoo.com (J.J.J. Jeevamani), mahendra@incois.gov.in (R.S. Mahendra),
amaliinfantina@gmail.com (J. Amali Infantina), cherukumalli2011@gmail.com (C. Srinivasa Rao).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2021.05.009
Received 10 June 2020; Received in revised form 27 April 2021; Accepted 12 May 2021
Available online 29 May 2021
1462-9011/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
T. Umamaheswari et al.
1. Introduction
Climate change is a phenomenon in which the distribution of
weather patterns changes spatially and temporally. It affects the coastal
areas in terms of sea level rise, changes in the frequency and intensity of
natural hazards like storms and cyclones, increased sea surface tem­
perature and many others. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) predicts that as sea temperature changes, fish numbers
may change leading to fish migration, disrupting food chains simulta­
neously; damage to wetlands and other low-lying habitats due to rising
sea levels and erratic weather would contribute to the issue (Adger et al.,
2003; Salim et al., 2014a) and thereby affects the fishing communities
largely who rely on the coastal and marine resources (Colburn et al.,
2016). Apart from this, more than 625 million people (as per the year
2000) live in coastal areas with less than 10 m elevation and the pop­
ulation in such areas is expected to reach more than one billion by 2060
(Neumann et al., 2015). The impacts of climate change therefore have a
significant impact on many lives and livelihoods of coastal communities,
and therefore the assessment of coastal vulnerability is given importance
worldwide (Dolan and Walker, 2004). Vulnerability assessment helps
the decision makers to identify, analyse and plan to tackle the causal
factors of disasters by taking systematic efforts to reduce exposure to
hazards, lessening vulnerability of people essentially by improving their
preparedness and resilience to adverse events apart from wiser man­
agement of land and environment (Saxena et al., 2013). Hence, it is
necessary to assess the extent of vulnerability in the coastal communities
which is the key activity in risk reduction, preparedness and manage­
ment of the disaster.
Vulnerability to climate change is the degree to which a system is
susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change,
including climate variability and extremes (Field et al., 2014) and de­
pends on extrinsic (exposure) and intrinsic (sensitivity and adaptive
capacity) factors (Johnson et al., 2016). Vulnerability to climate change
is a multi-dimensional process (Geetha et al., 2017) and is often reflected
in the condition of the economic system as well as the socio-economic
characteristics of the population living in that system (Patnaik and
Narayanan, 2009). Multidisciplinary nature of vulnerability often makes
it difficult to assess and analyse it (Turner et al., 2003; Senapati and
Gupta, 2012). Moreover, vulnerability assessments are subjective
(Krishnan et al., 2019) and the issue of vulnerability is location and
context specific (Senapati and Gupta, 2017). Vulnerability assessments
follow either top-down or bottom-up approaches. Top-down approach
involves climate model projections for the modelling of physical and
ecological impacts in different future scenarios with preference at large
scale levels such as global, national and regional scales, whereas
bottom-up approach is people centric in which their perceptions and
experiences are considered for assessing their risks and responses to
changing climatic conditions and hence they are at local scales such as
individuals, villages and communities (GIZ, 2014; Conway et al., 2019).
Decision makers require locally relevant information for adopting better
strategies to combat climate change and this makes the bottom-up
approach more relevant. On the other hand, both approaches have
merits and contribute to the decision-making process in different ways.
In comparative terms, they are neither better nor worse, simply
different.
India has a coastline of approximately 8100 km and is highly prone
to climate change consequences that lead to the degradation of the local
economic environment further affecting the socio-economic conditions
of coastal communities, particularly the fishers (MoEF, 2004; Senapati
and Gupta, 2017). In India, many studies have been conducted on
climate change impact and vulnerability assessment at the district and
State-levels but with little focus on fishery. Appelquist and Balstrøm
(2015) applied a new method termed as the Coastal Hazard Wheel
(CHW), for coastal multi-hazard assessment and management in the
State of Karnataka, India and revealed that 61 % of the State’s coastline
has a high or very high inherent hazard of erosion, followed by flooding
115
Environmental Science and Policy 123 (2021) 114–130
and salt water intrusion (39 %). A coastal vulnerability study was un­
dertaken by Salim et al. (2014a; 2014b) in Kerala, India using PARS
(Parameter, Attribute, Resilience and Sensitivity) methodology and
Maiti et al. (2017) highlighted the state of climate change induced social
vulnerability of the districts in Arunachal Pradesh through Integrated
Vulnerability Assessment Approach. Geetha et al. (2017) computed the
vulnerability index for ten coastal villages of Cuddalore district using
PARS methodology and concluded that the coast is highly vulnerable to
climate change and its related sea level rise. As aspects of climate change
are most critical to fishing dependent communities that include direct
and indirect impacts, developing effective strategies and policy frame­
works for managing adaptation of coastal communities to climate
change has increasing urgency for all coastal States (Colburn et al.,
2016). A community-level vulnerability assessment (bottom-up
approach) presents more challenges since different communities tend to
respond to climate change differently, depending on their sensitivity and
adaptive capacity (Senapati and Gupta, 2017). Moreover, understanding
climate stressors can provide policy makers with knowledge to develop
adaptive management strategies that will improve the resiliency of
coastal fishing communities (Morzaria-Luna et al., 2014) and the in­
terventions are required to be planned at micro-level such as those at
village/gram panchayat-level in India (Krishnan et al., 2019). Therefore,
to aid in micro-level planning to effectively mitigate the climate change
impacts, a robust conceptual framework was built through derivation of
indicators to assess coastal vulnerability and then to identify contrib­
uting factors for vulnerability at multiple levels from village-level to
taluk, district, State or national-levels (Krishnan et al., 2019). The basic
administrative unit considered in the framework is villages or rural areas
(generally revenue villages) and towns or urban areas, as per the Census
of India 2011 (ORGI, 2011a), in coastal taluks of coastal districts.
However, the characteristics of the coastal villages and hamlets espe­
cially the marine fishing villages differ from those of the other villages
that are located away from the shore in any coastal taluk/district in a
State. The differences might be due to their community composition and
structure, resource availability and its access, risk level, indigenous
knowledge and perceptions. The present study envisages to develop a
more specialised but robust framework using primary household survey
for assessing the vulnerability of coastal fishing villages by considering
local communities’ perception of the impact of climate change on their
socio-economic and fisheries potential. A perception-oriented approach
is given importance in reflecting the capacity or constraint of the fishing
communities to respond, recover and adapt to vulnerabilities related to
the climate (Dolan and Walker, 2004). The framework is then applied in
marine fishing villages of Thoothukudi district in Tamil Nadu, India and
the findings are discussed. In addition, the socio-economic vulnerability
of census villages and towns or urban areas (as opposed to fishing vil­
lages/hamlets that are located within them) in the district was assessed
using the SEVI framework of Krishnan et al. (2019) which is based on
secondary census level data at village level. The vulnerabilities of ma­
rine fishing villages are compared with respective census villages/urban
areas and the utility of the two frameworks at appropriate administra­
tive setup is further elaborated in the present study.
2. Materials and methods
Terms: E,
2.1. Development of criteria and indicators for vulnerability assessment of
S, AC, CV,
coastal fishing villages
SEV
Exposure (E), sensitivity (S) and adaptive capacity (AC) are the key
factors that determine the vulnerability of households and communities
to the impacts of climate variability and change (Parry et al., 2007; Islam
et al., 2014). Based on this broad conceptual schema, two different
methodological frameworks were used to assess (i) the cumulative
vulnerability (CV), as a function of E, S and AC and (ii) the
socio-economic vulnerability (SEV), as a function of S and AC, of the
coastal community.
T. Umamaheswari et al. Environmental Science and Policy 123 (2021) 114–130

The socio-economic vulnerability index and cumulative vulnera­ Table 1

bility index constructed under this study using primary survey data on Criteria and indicators developed to determine bio-physical and socio-economic
54 indicators were designated as SEVIPH and CVIPH respectively (PH vulnerability (SEV) of marine fishing villages.
representing primary data from household survey - Method A). Socio- Criteria Sub-criteria Indicators
economic vulnerability index (SEVI) was also determined using the 1. Source of vulnerability due to climate
secondary village level census data on 23 indicators following Krishnan –
change in the village (SoV)
et al. (2019) and the same was designated as SEVISV (Method B). Thus, Exposure (E) 2. Type of vulnerability frequently
the two methods differ in both unit of study (household vs. village) and – exposed on coastal communities in the
village (ToV)
the source of data (primary survey vs. secondary census). The rationale
3. Shift in fishing ground (ShF)
for using both methods was two-fold: (1) to make use of SEVISV as a 4. Fish species distribution (FS)
valuable and handy tool to understand the vulnerability of fishing vil­ 5. Species composition (SC)
lages and fishers; and (2) to evolve a more micro-level, grounded and 6. Catch (C)
comprehensive tool using a large sample survey data (SEVIPH and CVIPH) 7. Migration of fishes from inshore to
deep sea (MF)
and compare it with SEVISV. Besides, dependence of coastal fishers - as a Fishery (S–F)
8. Loss in fishery inventory (LF)
population sub-set of marine capture fisheries - is nearly total, and hence 9. Conflicts in fishing areas across
understanding the nature and extent of climate change on fisheries and sectors (CFA)
therefore fishers is sine quanon. Though SEVISV is a robust tool developed 10. Industrialization/ Urbanization (I/
U)
primarily for assessing vulnerability of coastal population, the same
11. Aquaculture (A)
could be strengthened by providing adequate weightage for fisheries 12. Demographical changes (DC)
and fishers, who constitute a significant segment of the coastal 13. Educational facility (EF)
population. 14. Sanitation facility (SaF)
The indicators that constitute the SEVIPH and CVIPH (Method A) were Sensitivity (S) 15. Knowledge/Awareness on climate
change (KACC)
collated through review of published sources and shortlisted based on
16. Sea safety (SS)
expert consultations, statistical validation and expert judgment, a 17. Access to early warning information
detailed exposition of which is provided in the following section. (AWI)
18. Waste management (WM)
Social (S–S) 19. Infrastructures for disaster
2.1.1. Exposure criterion and its indicators
management (IDM)
Exposure in the context of this study (Method A) is the nature and 20. Disaster management practices
degree to which a fishery-based livelihood system and households are (DMP)
exposed to significant climatic variations (McCarthy et al., 2001; Islam 21. Gender disparity (GD)
et al., 2014). In the present evaluation, the exposure (E) indicators 22. Social interaction (SI)
23. Change in livelihood aspiration
(Salim et al., 2014a; Senapati and Gupta, 2017; Krishnan et al., 2019)
among younger generation (CLAY)
representing the bio-physical vulnerability of the coastal regions (here 24. Affiliation with community groups/
fishing villages) and their residents (here coastal communities including Fisheries Co-operatives (ACGFC)
fishing households) have been considered. Prevalence of different cli­ 25. Cost of living (CL)
26. Income effect (IE)
matic shocks and stresses such as drought, extreme temperature,
27. Input cost of fishing (ICF)
flooding, sea level rise, storms, water scarcity, seawater inundation, soil 28. Number of fishing days per month
moisture, habitat destruction, forest fire and human health (INCCA, (FDM)
2010) as the source of vulnerability in the villages (SoV), and the type of Economic (AC-E) 29. Migration of fishers to other
shocks/stresses that the coastal communities in the villages (ToV) are livelihood options (MFOL)
30. Livestock/Crop (L/C)
exposed to as a result, have been regarded as indicators for exposure
31. Economic loss due to spoilage (ELS)
assessment (Table 1, Table S1). 32. Financial capital (FC)
33. Access to credit facility (ACF)
2.1.2. Criteria for sensitivity and adaptive capacity, and their indicators 34. Coastal tourism (CT)
35. Development of residential area
Sensitivity in the context of this study (Method A) is the degree to
(DRA)
which a fishery-based livelihood system and households are affected by 36. Anthropogenic pollutants (AP)
or respond to climate stimuli both problematic stimuli and beneficial 37. Land use pattern (LUP)
stimuli (McCarthy et al., 2001; Islam et al., 2014). Sensitivity indicators Adaptive
38. Expansion of industries (EI)
characterise the first-order effects of stresses. The elements and aspects 39. Urbanization (URB)
Capacity
Development Drivers 40. Responsible fishing practices (RFP)
that reflect the health status of fisheries, and the attributes related to (AC)
(AC-DD) 41. Development/Installation of
community structures, social groups and social capital and governance aggregating devices (AD)
structures were considered as indicators for measuring sensitivity 42. Sea ranching (SR)
(Fig. 1a). Thus, the sensitivity (S) assessment included two aspects 43. Communication and early warning
(sub-criteria) viz., Sensitivity–Fishery (S–F) and Sensitivity–Social facilities in fishing vessels (CWFB)
44. Disaster preparedness (DP)
(S–S) (Table 1). Adaptive capacity is the ability or capacity of the 45. Incentives and economic support
fishery-based livelihood system and households to adjust to climate from government (IESG)
change or to cope with the consequences (McCarthy et al., 2001; Islam 46. Alternate livelihood activities in the
et al., 2014). Adaptive Capacity (AC) assessment (Method A) includes village (AL)
47. Household dependence on alternate
three aspects (sub-criteria) viz., Adaptive Capacity–Economic (AC–E),
livelihood activities (HD)
Adaptive Capacity–Development Drivers (AC–DD) and Adaptive Alternate Livelihood
48. Number of years dependence on
Activity (AC–ALA)
Capacity–Alternate Livelihood Activity (AC–ALA). Indicators of AC–E alternate livelihood activities (YD)
were developed considering the nature and type of exposure to liveli­ 49. Source of training for alternate
hood characteristics such as livelihood assets and strategies, income and livelihood activities (Tr)
50. Duration of training (DTr)
financial capital (Fig. 1a). Similarly, indicators capturing infrastructure,
(continued on next page)
ability or inability to access financial, technological and information
resources were measured under AC–DD as they play a catalytic role in

116
T. Umamaheswari et al. Environmental Science and Policy 123 (2021) 114–130

Table 1 (continued )
Criteria Sub-criteria Indicators
51. Time spent on alternate livelihood
activities (TS)
52. Income generation from alternate
livelihood activities (IGA)
53. Selling of products/services (SP)
54. Household perception on the
importance of income generation/
benefit of alternate livelihood activities
to own family (HP)
the climate change impact. Various practices that reflect alternate
livelihood activities (AC–ALA) were identified as indicators to assess
the extent of adaptive capacity (Table 1). This approach broadens the
ambit of adaptive capacity by bringing aspects of enabling or destabil­
ising external environment in addition to the households’
socio-economic conditions.
2.1.3. Assignment of scores for quantitative assessment of indicators
The options used to illustrate the qualitative status of the indicators
were carefully integrated into a survey schedule and subsequently used
to assess the households’ perceptions on the indicators through primary
household surveys (discussed in Section 2.2.2). In order to allow quan­
titative assessment of indicators, differential scores were allocated,
following logical reasoning, to the qualitative options based on their
degree of effect upon the criterion. For example, a major shift in the
distribution of fish species may have a greater effect on raising the
sensitivity of fishing communities, whereas a minor change and lack of
change may have a moderate and low/nil effect on their sensitivity,
respectively. In view of this, the options considered for the fish species
distribution (FS) indicator have been given the scores: 1 for no change, 2
for limited changes and 3 for significant changes. Similar strategy was
taken to assign scores for all options in each indicator (Table S1).
2.2. Application of criteria and indicators
Primary household survey was undertaken with a help of structured
survey schedule during 2018 to measure the socio-economic and cu­
mulative vulnerabilities of coastal communities (SEVIPH and CVIPH,
Method A).
2.2.1. Study area
Thoothukudi is a coastal district of Tamil Nadu in India (Fig. 2). It
covers a total geographical area of 4707 sq. km (https://thoothukudi.
nic.in) constituting about 3.5 % of the State and has a coastline of
163.5 km (http://iomenvis.nic.in) and six coastal taluks. Thoothukudi is
8 m above sea level and enjoys a hot tropical climate conducive for
agricultural and horticulture crops. Agriculture, salt production, marine
fisheries and tourism are the primary sources of employment and major
contributors to the district’s economy. Besides, Thoothukudi urban pe­
riphery hosts a large hub of chemical products industries and has a
major port and fishing harbour. As per the Marine Fisherfolk Census
2010 of Tamil Nadu (http://iomenvis.nic.in), the fisherfolk population
in Thoothukudi district is 73,941 with a sex ratio of 953 (females per
1000 males) and an average family size of 4.17. In the study area,

Fig. 1. (a) Criteria, sub-criteria and their indicators for assessment of socio-economic vulnerability (SEV) used in the present study for marine fishing villages
(Method A) and (b) SEVISV framework (Method B) adopted from Krishnan et al. (2019) and its indicators with differential weightage (See Table S2 for the magnitude
of the weightage).

117
T. Umamaheswari et al.
Fig. 2. Study area showing the six coastal taluks and marine fishing villages in Thoothukudi district, Tamil Nadu.
majority of the fishers (98.63 %) are engaged in marine fishing. Marine
fishing operations are being carried out in motorised (85.53 %), mech­
anised (13.32 %) and non-motorised (1.15 %) crafts with gill nets (3004
numbers), trawl nets (251 numbers), etc. Based on the number of fishing
days, single day fishing (95.48 %) is predominant over 2–5 days (1.5 %),
6–8 days (2.59 %) and above 8 days (0.42 %) of fishing. Being located in
east coast, the district is highly vulnerable to cyclones and monsoon
causing heavy damages to the coastal areas almost every year in addi­
tion to seasonal fluctuations in terms of temperature, relative humidity
and wind speed etc. (Government of Tamil Nadu, 2018). Thus, climate
change in various dimensions imposes an adverse impact on coastal
ecosystem and biodiversity that affect the lives and livelihoods of the
coastal community.
2.2.2. Data collection and processing
Marine Fisherfolk Census 2010 of Tamil Nadu lists 21 fishing villages
in Thoothukudi district whereas the district’s revenue and administra­
tive boundaries mention 24 fishing villages or hamlets in six coastal
taluks viz., Vilathikulam (four villages), Ottapidaram (three villages),
Thoothukudi (five villages), Srivaikundam (two villages), Thiruchendur
(nine villages), and Sathankulam (one village). The study was conducted
covering all the 24 fishing villages as per latter’s listing. The sampling
unit was households and a total of 1741 coastal households (1437
fisherfolk and 304 non-fisherfolk) were randomly selected in the study
area. Sampling units accounted for about 5 % of the total households
(34,887) in these villages. The list of marine fishing villages in each
coastal taluk of Thoothukudi district along with the number of sampling
households is presented in Table 2. A structured survey schedule was
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Environmental Science and Policy 123 (2021) 114–130
framed to collect primary data on the 54 indicators (Table 1) from the
randomly selected coastal households. Upon receiving confirmation and
assistance from respective religious and community leaders, data
collection for most of the fishing villages was undertaken, as the ma­
jority of the coastal villages are under their informal governance.
Assistance was also obtained from the State Fisheries Department au­
thorities for data collection. The surveyed respondents were personally
contacted, and the research objectives were clearly explained before
collecting the required information. The respondents were mainly the
head of the households and their mean age was 44 years (range: 21–80
years). Reflections on socio-economic dimensions and climate vari­
ability by the fishers were documented exclusively through Focus Group
Discussions (FGD). The responses (perceptions) of all households against
the suite of indicators in each criterion (E, S and AC) were at first
translated into binary data (0′ s and 1′ s). Based on the response of
households, the indicator-wise scores for each household were calcu­
lated using the assigned scores for options in indicators (Table S1).
2.2.3. Sub-criteria assessment
All the indicator-wise scores under each sub-criterion in both S and
AC were summed up at household-level. The cumulative scores, thus
obtained for all households, were normalized (from 0 to 1) using Eq. 1
(Freudenberg, 2003) within the sub-criterion and the normalized values
were treated as household-level index values for the sub-criteria i.e.,
Sensitivity Index-Fishery (SI-F), Sensitivity Index-Social (SI-S) under
Sensitivity criterion and Adaptive Capacity Index-Economic (ACI-E),
Adaptive Capacity Index-Development Drivers (ACI-DD) and Adaptive
Capacity Index-Alternate Livelihood Activity (ACI-ALA) under Adaptive
T. Umamaheswari et al. Environmental Science and Policy 123 (2021) 114–130

Table 2
List of marine fishing villages and their corresponding census villages/urban areas in Thoothukudi district, Tamil Nadu.
Coastal Taluk (total households/ Census village/ urban area corresponds to marine fishing village (total Marine fishing village No. of sampling
populationa) households/ populationa) households

(A.) Vembar (1492/6307) (A.) Vembar 76

Vilathikulam (38,335/1,39,581 in 88 (B.) Periasamypuram (366/1507) (B.) Periyasamypuram 28
census units) (C1.) Keelavaipar 53
(C.) Vaippar - II (773/3168)
(C2.) Sippikulam 17
(D.) Pattanamarudur (195/805) (D.) Pattinamaruthur 17
Ottapidaram (32,955/1,23,356 in 64
(E.) Tharuvaikulam (1743/7325) (E.) Tharuvaikulam 156
census units)
(F.) Keela Arasadi (523/2186) (F.) Vellapatti 31
(G1.) Saveriyarpuram 25
(G.) Mappilaiurani CT (10,116/40,035)
(G2.) Silluvaipatti 51
Thoothukudi (1,22,574/4,78,328 in 32
(H1.) Thoothukudi North 324
census units) (H.) Thoothukudi (3516/14,159)
(H2.) Loorthammalpuram 60
(I.) Thoothukkudi M Corp. (60,714/2,37,830) (I.) Thoothukudi South 222
Srivaikundam (52,689/2,02,962 in 69 (J1.) Pazhayakayal 26
(J.) Palayakkayal (1214/5024)
census units) (J2.) Ratchanyapuram 20
(K1.) Kombuthurai 9
(K.) Kayalpattinam M (9417/40,588)
(K2.) Singithurai 63
(L.)
(L.) Veerapandianpattinam CT (1594/6015) 61
Veerapandianpattinam
Thiruchendur (78,321/3,10,945 in 57 (M1.) Amalinagar 49
census units) (M.) Tiruchendur TP (8271/32,171) (M2.) Alanthalai 47
(M3.) Jeevanagar 10
(N.) Manapad (1321/5795) (N.) Manapad 117
(O.) Punnakayal (1744/7684) (O.) Punnakayal 144
(P.) Kulasekaranpattinam (1919/7891) (P.) Kulasekarapattinam 46
Sathankulam (25,971/98,690 in 26 census
(Q.) Padukkapathu (1847/7425) (Q.) Periyathalai 89
units)
a
Total households/population as per Census of India 2011 (ORGI, 2011b).

Capacity criterion. The normalization process was done for all
sub-criteria except for AC-ALA at two different scales i.e., absolute scale
(AS) and relative scale (RS). Absolute scale allows the assessment of
household status in terms of sensitivity or adaptive capacity on a
stand-alone basis and enabling national-level comparisons whereas
relative scale enables positioning the sensitivity or adaptive capacity of
households in relation to other households under consideration within
the study area, the fishing villages of Thoothukudi district. For AC-ALA
sub-criterion, normalization was carried out only on a relative scale, as
the alternative livelihood practices considered are unique to the study
area and they differ across the coastal regions of India.
Zi =
Xi − Xmin
(1)
Xmax − Xmin
In Eq. 1, Zi denotes the normalized value of ith sampling household
with respect to the sub-criterion X, and Xi is the composite score of the ith
sampling household after adding up the indicator-wise scores under the
sub-criterion X. The Xmin and Xmax varies between the absolute and
relative scales. In AS, Xmin and Xmax are the lowest and highest possible
composite scores in sub-criterion X, respectively. In RS, Xmin and Xmax
are the observed minimum and maximum composite scores among the
sampling households in sub-criterion X, respectively.
2.2.4. Estimation of exposure index (EI), sensitivity index (SI) and
adaptive capacity index (ACI)
Unlike S and AC criteria, exposure index (EI) at household-level was
determined by adding up the obtained scores of the two indicators in the
exposure (E) criterion (due to absence of sub-criteria) and normalizing
across the households using Eq. 1 at relative scale only. The sensitivity
index (SI) at household-level was determined by averaging the calcu­
lated SI-F and SI-S values at both relative and absolute scales. Similarly,
adaptive capacity index (ACI) was calculated for households by taking
averages across the ACI-E, ACI-DD and ACI-ALA values at both scales.
The EI, SI and ACI referred here are sub-indices of CVIPH and SEVIPH.
2.2.5. Cumulative Vulnerability Index (CVIPH)
The three criteria have differential effects on vulnerability in which
the EI and SI have positive effects, while the adaptive capacity has
negative effects (Li et al., 2016; Krishnan et al., 2019). In this regard, the
estimated criteria-wise indices (EI, SI and ACI) have been integrated to
measure cumulative vulnerability index (at household-level, CVIPH) as
expressed in Eq. 2 at both scales. In the case of CVIPH values exceeding 1,
they were treated as 1.
CVIPH = (EI∗SI)/ACI (2)
2.2.6. Socio-economic Vulnerability Index (SEVIPH)
Household-level socio-economic vulnerability due to climate change
in the fishing villages was considered as a positive function of sensitivity
and negative function of adaptive capacity. Thus, the socio-economic
vulnerability index (SEVIPH) for households was determined at both
scales from the estimated SI and ACI following the Eq. 3 adopted from
Krishnan et al. (2019).
SEVIPH = SI/(1 + ACI) (3)
All the estimated indices (sub-criteria wise, criteria wise, CVIPH and
SEVI PH) range between 0 and 1. Higher index value implies higher
vulnerability (or sensitivity and so on) and vice versa. Based on values,
indices were grouped into five categories viz., very low (0 to 0.20), low
(>0.20 to 0.40), moderate (>0.40 to 0.60), high (>0.60 to 0.80) and
very high (>0.80 to 1.0) for qualitative interpretation. Discussion on
SEVI values is presented after the CVI to ensure greater coherence. Since
SEVI helps in deciphering the drivers and buffers of vulnerability, its
discussion leads directly to effective climate change mitigation in­
terventions for the underlying spatial systems.
2.2.7. Village/taluk-level assessment and spatial mapping of indices
The estimated indices refer to the status at household-level. In order
to obtain indices at the village-level, the household-level index values in
each village were averaged at respective scales (absolute and relative).
Similarly, the corresponding village-level indices were averaged for
respective taluks to obtain taluk-level indices. The geospatial village
administrative boundaries in the six coastal taluks were prepared from
published maps and village cadastral maps (NRSC and ISRO, 2011). The

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T. Umamaheswari et al.
indices for EI, SI, ACI, CVIPH and SEVIPH were displayed in the 0–1.0
scale as thematic maps.
2.2.8. SEVIPH decision matrix
Decision matrix is a graphical tool to identify clusters of socio-
economically vulnerable fishing villages that can effectively aid in
planning appropriate interventions. The decision matrix has four
quadrants (Quadrant I, II, III and IV) wherein fishing villages are plotted
based on their SI and ACI values. For separating villages into clusters, a
threshold value, here the median value, was set for both SI and ACI
which were 0.52 and 0.38, respectively. Instead of fixed threshold
values, as discussed in the SEVI framework (Krishnan et al., 2019),
median values were preferred to set the threshold values dynamically
based on the distribution of SIs/ACIs as per the socio-economic condi­
tions of the coastal region under assessment. In the present study, ma­
rine fishing villages in quadrant of SI ≤ 0.52 and ACI > 0.38 (Quadrant I)
were recognized as least vulnerable villages, while villages in quadrant
of SI > 0.52 and ACI ≤ 0.38 (Quadrant III) were considered the most
vulnerable socio-economically. Further analysis of various indicators in
such villages could be helpful in identifying the drivers and buffers
responsible for socio-economic vulnerability. ‘Drivers’ are such in­
dicators which push up the vulnerability levels due to high sensitivity
and/or low adaptive capacity and ‘buffers’ on the contrary are the in­
dicators that reduce the vulnerability levels due to high adaptive ca­
pacity and/or low sensitivity in a given area (Krishnan et al., 2019). For
this purpose, the indicator-wise index values for villages were calculated
following the normalization process and qualitative index categoriza­
tion mentioned above. Socio-economic vulnerability drivers are in­
dicators with index values >0.50 in sensitivity (S-F and S-S) and
indicators with index values ≤0.50 in adaptive capacity (AC-E, AC-DD
and AC-ALA). Buffers for socio-economic vulnerability are indicators
with index values of ≤0.50 in sensitivity and indicators with index
values of >0.50 in adaptive capacity.
2.2.9. Statistical analysis
Indicator-wise scores of households in each sub-criterion were
checked for reliability using the composite reliability estimate given by
Raykov (1997). Composite reliability values ranged between 0.65 and
0.93 for sub-criteria, suggesting strong reliability of indicators (level of
acceptable fit >0.60, Tseng et al., 2006) in estimating the corresponding
sub-criteria wise indices. The results of the estimated composite indices,
such as EI, SI, ACI, CVIPH and SEVIPH, were mapped and discussed below
in relative scale only because these indices at different levels (house­
hold, village, taluk) did not display much difference between absolute
and relative scale in terms of their median values. Relative scale was
favoured over absolute scale as it portrays the variability in vulnerability
at grassroots level. Non-parametric tests were applied as normalized
household-level index values were not normally distributed as
confirmed by the Shapiro-Wilk test (Shapiro and Wilk, 1965).
Kruskal-Wallis test (Kruskal and Wallis, 1952) was used to test the sig­
nificance of variation in median values of different indices among vil­
lages and taluks separately. Pearson’s product moment correlation
coefficient i.e., r (Pearson, 1948) was used to detect any relation exist
among village-level EIs, SIs and ACIs.
2.3. Socio-economic vulnerability of census villages/urban areas
(SEVISV)
The SEV assessment as per Method B following Krishnan et al. (2019)
(i.e., the secondary census village level based SEVISV) is detailed here.
The six coastal taluks in Thoothukudi district compose of 336 adminis­
trative units, i.e., villages, urban areas and reserve forest, according to
Census of India 2011 (ORGI, 2011b). Excluding the uninhabited villages
(six villages), we estimated the socio-economic sensitivity (SI),
socio-economic adaptive capacity (ACI) and socio-economic vulnera­
bility (SEVISV) indices for the remaining census villages/urban areas
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Environmental Science and Policy 123 (2021) 114–130
following the SEVI framework provided by Krishnan et al. (2019). The
SEVISV framework consisted of two specific categories viz., sensitivity
and adaptive capacity with a total of 23 indicators. Each of the two
categories has two dimensions, i.e., social and economic, and the
number of indicators in each of these dimensions were 5 or 6 (Table S2,
Fig. 1b). Data for all indicators in the SEVISV framework were collected
appropriately from various secondary sources for the Thoothukudi dis­
trict, such as Census of India 2001 (ORGI, 2001), Central Ground Water
Board 2009 (http://www.cgwb.gov.in/), Marine Fisheries Census 2010
(CMFRI, 2012a), Agricultural Census 2010–2011 (http://agcensus.
dacnet.nic.in/), Census of India 2011 (ORGI, 2011b), Livestock Census
2012 (http://farmer.gov.in/), National Family Health Survey
2015–2016 (http://rchiips.org/), Rainfall Statistics of India 2016 (IMD,
2017) and data gaps within the indicators were resolved by median
imputation. Indicator-wise indices for all census units were calculated
after assigning scores and normalization as shown in Table S2. For each
dimension, i.e., social sensitivity, economic sensitivity, social adaptive
capacity and economic adaptive capacity, their indices were determined
by applying the respective proportionate weightage (Table S2) given by
Krishnan et al. (2019) on the indicator-wise indices and adding up them
in each dimension. Socio-economic SIs/ACIs for census villages/urban
areas in the district were estimated by taking the averages (equal
weightage) of social and economic SIs/ACIs, respectively. These esti­
mated socio-economic SIs/ACIs for the census villages/urban areas have
been used to assess the SEVIs for them following the Eq. 3. All the
socio-economic SI, ACI and SEVISV obtained were absolute values and
were renormalized using Eq. 1 within the 330 census units to obtain the
rescaled SI (SI-R), ACI (ACI-R) and SEVISV (SEVISV-R), respectively for
the census units. The socio-economic SI and the socio-economic ACI for
each coastal taluk were determined on relative basis using the Eq. 4 and
Eq. 5, respectively.
∑
I
Socio − economic SI for the taluk (SI − R) = (WPi ∗SI − Ri ) (4)
i=1
( ) )
∑
I
Socio − economicACI for the taluk ACI − R = (WPi ∗ACI − Ri
i=1
(5)
In the Eq. 4 and Eq. 5, i denotes the individual census village/urban
area in the coastal taluk, I denotes the total number of census villages/
urban areas in the taluk, WPi is the proportion of ith census village/urban
area population to the coastal taluk’s total population, SI-Ri and ACI-Ri
denote the rescaled socio-economic SI and ACI of ith census village/
urban area in the taluk, respectively. Similarly, socio-economic SI and
socio-economic ACI for the Thoothukudi district were estimated using
the Eq. 6 and Eq. 7, respectivey.
∑
T
Socio − economic SI for the district (SI − R) = (WPt ∗SI − Rt )
t=1
(6)
( )
Socio − economic ACI for the district ACI − R
)
∑
T
= (WPt ∗ACI − Rt (7)
t=1
In the Eq. 6 and Eq. 7, t denotes the individual coastal taluk, T de­
notes the total number of coastal taluks in the district, WPt is the pro­
portion of tth taluk’s population to the total population of the six coastal
taluks, SI-Rt and ACI-Rt denote the rescaled socio-economic SI and ACI of
tth taluk, respectively. SEVISV (SEVISV-R) for the six coastal taluks and
the Thoothukudi district were decided after the Eq. 3 using the above-
mentioned taluk wise SIs/ACIs and district level SI/ACI, respectively.
After the estimation of indices of all census villages/urban areas in
T. Umamaheswari et al.
the coastal taluks, the indices for census units corresponding to the 24
marine fishing villages or hamlets across the six coastal taluks were
identified. This resulted in a total of 17 census units (villages and urban
areas) against the 24 marine fishing villages (Table 2). The number of
marine fishing villages varies from census units, since the fisheries
department recognizes the boundaries of the former as those with pre­
dominately fishers inhabited hamlets in the respective coastal States/
Union Territories (CMFRI, 2012b) as against the census units that are
usually larger in space and population, and consist of both fishing and
non-fishing population. The SI-Rs and ACI-Rs for the 17 census units
were plotted against each other in a decision matrix (as discussed in
Section 2.2.8) to identify socio-economically vulnerable census villag­
es/urban areas. A threshold value of 0.50 was set for both SI and ACI to
separate census villages/urban areas into clusters. Villages in the
quadrant of SI ≤ 0.50 and ACI > 0.50 (Quadrant I) were identified as the
least vulnerable, while villages in the quadrant of SI > 0.50 and ACI ≤
0.50 (Quadrant III) were considered to be socio-economically most
vulnerable. The drivers and buffers for socio-economic vulnerability
were also determined for the census units following the process
explained in Section 2.2.8.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Exposure level of marine fishing villages
Nearly half the marine fishing villages (46 %, 11 villages) had high
climate induced exposure (EIs from 0.61 to 0.80), followed by 37 %
(nine villages) and 17 % (four villages) with moderate (>0.40 to 0.60)
and low (>0.20 to 0.40) EIs, respectively (Fig. 3a). Village-level EIs
ranged from 0.31 to 0.70 (median: 0.59, n: 24). Kruskal-Wallis test
showed that the median EIs among the villages were significantly
different (chi square: 762.56, p < 0.05, df: 23). This meant that the
exposure levels differed significantly among the villages. Increased
exposure is due to the prevalence of multiple climatic stresses in fishing
villages and also to the frequent exposure of households in them to these
multiple stresses. Many households reported to have been frequently
affected by extreme temperature and water scarcity (each 94 %) fol­
lowed by seawater inundation (83 %), drought (70 %), human health
(67 %) and sea level rise (53 %). When aggregated at the next level,
three out of six coastal taluks viz., Vilathikulam (EI: 0.61), Srivaikundam
(EI: 0.62) and Thoothukudi (EI: 0.64) showed high exposure levels,
while the other three taluks viz., Thiruchendur, Sathankulam and
Ottapidaram displayed moderate EIs with indices of 0.43, 0.53 and 0.56,
respectively. Surprisingly, the median EIs among the taluks were found
to be statistically significant (chi square: 18.13, p < 0.05, df: 5) indi­
cating variability even at taluk level. Among the coastal districts in
Tamil Nadu, Thoothukudi was found to be highly vulnerable in the
fisheries sector and was attributed to its high exposure to climate vari­
ability (Ramachandran et al., 2016).
Fig. 3. Marine fishing village-wise (a) EI, (b) SI, (c) ACI, (d) CVIPH and (e) SEVIPH obtained in relative scale (RS) [Note: Singithurai village is not shown in the map).
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Environmental Science and Policy 123 (2021) 114–130
3.2. Sensitivity
SIs of the 24 marine fishing villages ranged between 0.36 and 0.74
with a median of 0.52 thus suggesting an overall moderate degree of
sensitivity. Five villages (21 %) exhibited high sensitivity, while the
majority of 17 marine fishing villages (71 %) had moderate level of
sensitivity, and only two villages had low sensitivity (Fig. 3b). The
fishery sensitivity (median SI-F: 0.59), though moderate, was closer to
the upper margin, while the social sensitivity was closer to lower margin
of moderate level (median SI-S: 0.47). Majority of households reported
disappearance of existing major fisheries (59 %), reduction in fish catch
(67 %), greatly observed migration of fishes from inshore to deep sea (64
%) and maximum loss in fishery inventory (65 %) pushing up the fish­
eries sensitivity index. About half the households expressed a continuous
shift in fishing grounds (about 51 % of households), drastic changes in
the distribution of fish species (53 %), and increasing industrialization
and urbanization (50 %). These issues perceived by fishermen as reasons
for reduced catches, may be driven by causes such as overfishing,
dependence on non-selective fishing gear, pollution of coastal waters,
anthropogenic activities and possibly due to climate change, all of which
need better scrutiny before they are attributed as reasons for dwindling
fish catches. The exposure of the current study area to the impacts of
climate change is cumulative of natural and anthropogenic parameters.
However, it is very difficult to separate the contribution of the human
impacts such as pollution and urbanization from climate change. Social
sensitivity of villages remained moderate as most households rated few
indicators negatively (high sensitivity) and other few positively (low
sensitivity) thereby bringing the index score to the middle level. While
indicators such as more access to education facilities (56 %), availability
of proper sanitation facilities (68 %), incipient awareness about climate
change (51 %), less observed gender disparity (57 %), emerging liveli­
hood aspirations among youths (75 %) and stronger presence of fisheries
co-operatives (72 %) reduced the social sensitivity values, the indicators
such as larger demographic changes (60 %), adherence to traditional
methods of sea safety (60 %), difficulty in access to early warning in­
formation (60 %), leniency for waste management (75 %), fair level of
infrastructures development for disaster management (57 %), poor
adherence to disaster management practices (64 %), and a limited social
interaction (65 %) pushed up the social sensitivity index, thereby
equalising the former set of indicators. Similar to EI, Kruskal-Wallis test
revealed a significant difference in the medians of SI among the fishing
villages (chi square: 765.21, p < 0.05, df: 23) and therefore indicated a
varied response of villages to climate change, due to their sensitive
nature. At taluk-level, only Thoothukudi taluk showed higher sensitivity
(SI: 0.62), while remaining five taluks had moderate levels, and there­
fore no significant difference among the taluks in the median SIs (chi
square: 7.68, p > 0.05, df: 5). The variations seen among the villages’
sensitivity to climate change impacts get masked when the SIs are
aggregated at the taluk level, underscoring the importance of household-
based village level assessment.
T. Umamaheswari et al. Environmental Science and Policy 123 (2021) 114–130

Sensitivity levels of census villages/urban areas, as assessed by the
SEVISV framework (Krishnan et al., 2019), provided only a slightly
different picture on coastal vulnerability. Overall, Thoothukudi district
displayed moderate sensitivity (SI-R: 0.45). One taluk (Ottapidaram)
had high socio-economic sensitivity (SI-R: 0.69), while the three taluks
(Srivaikundam, Thoothukudi and Vilathikulam) had moderate
socio-economic sensitivities and the rest of the two taluks (Sathankulam
and Thiruchendur) had low degree of sensitivities. About 39 % (129
census units) of census villages/urban areas had higher sensitivity and
37 % (123 census units) showed moderate socio-economic sensitivities.
In particular, 86 % of the census villages/urban areas in Ottapidaram
taluk (total 64 census units) had either high or very high degree of
socio-economic sensitivities. Unlike the sensitivity of 24 marine fishing
villages as revealed by SEVIPH, only 12 % of the corresponding census
villages/urban areas had higher sensitivities, while nearly half (47 %,
eight census villages) showed moderate socio-economic sensitivities and
the remaining 41 % (seven census villages/urban areas) with low sen­
sitivities. Though not strikingly different, it is evident that the degree of
socio-economic sensitivity varies for the marine fishing villages and the
census villages/urban areas that cover those (Fig. 4), as fishing villages
and the fisherfolk exhibit higher sensitivity as compared to the overall
coastal population. At taluk level, the vulnerability levels tend to shift
based on whether one views from the perspective of the smaller fishing
villages/households or the larger census villages (Thoothukudi taluk vs.
Ottapidarum taluk) as the two frameworks, SEVIPH and SEVISV tend to
capture different realities.

Fig. 4. Socio-economic sensitivity and adaptive capacity indices for (a) marine fishing villages (SEVIPH) and (b) census villages corresponding to fishing villages
(SEVISV) in the Thoothukudi district (Alphanumerics and alphabets indicate the names of marine fishing units and their corresponding census units, respectively, as
shown in Table 2).

122
T. Umamaheswari et al.
3.3. Adaptive capacity
The village-level ACIs had a narrow range between 0.18 and 0.47
with a median value of 0.38 suggesting low adaptation potential of
marine fishing villages to climate stress. Low ACIs of villages were found
to result mainly from the low economic ability (median ACI-E: 0.34) of
the households and their very little evidence of alternate livelihood
activities (median ACI-ALA: 0.16). However, the households perceived
the developmental drivers around them to be moderate (median ACI-
DD: 0.59) which might equip them fight climate change in the vil­
lages. More specifically, majority of the households reported an increase
in cost of living (92 %) and fishing (80 %), a high economic loss due to
spoilage (64 %), a moderate number of fishing days in a month (54 %),
reduced livestock/crop yield (58 %), a moderate level of financial cap­
ital (50 %) and access to credit (58 %). Senapati and Gupta (2017)
demonstrated that vulnerability perpetuates due to the physical and
financial constraints of the fishing communities, rendering them more
fragile and less adaptive due to their inability to use efficient mecha­
nised boats and advanced fishing implements.
Marine fishing villages in Thoothukudi district are still deeply
entrenched in small scale fishing in spite of certain degree of industri­
alisation around the Thoothukudi town. Six percent of households
depended on alternate livelihood activities, only one percent had more
than five years of reliance on these activities, just five percent had
training on ALA and even a smaller proportion (2%) perceived that in­
come benefits were significant from ALA. The absence of livelihood
diversification as evidenced from low alternate livelihood activity index
(ALAI) value (0.16) is indicative of two related realities: fisherfolk have
not taken to the very few fisheries related ALA that are available,
perhaps owing to their lack of knowledge as well as scepticism; though
fishing is fraught with increasing uncertainties, it has not yet dwindled
too drastically to wean many fishing households away from fishing.
Besides, fishers are still very reluctant to take to non-fishing livelihood
options, though interaction with youngsters indicate changing aspira­
tions among the educated youth. The overall status of developmental
drivers was moderate. Most households perceived deterioration of eco­
systems due to anthropogenic pollutants (74 %), occurrence of infec­
tious diseases and fatalities due to land use pattern (53 %), expansion of
industries at a rapid rate (63 %), non-availability of communications
and early warning systems in boats (67 %), moderate disaster pre­
paredness (58 %) and limited economic support from government (58
%). On the positive side, majority of households felt that coastal tourism
is planned and sustainable (68 %), adhere to responsible fishing prac­
tices (57 %), installed fish aggregating devices (75 %) and favour the
practice of sea-ranching (93 %).
Nearly two third of the total fishing villages (62 %, 15 villages) had
low or very low ACIs, while nine villages (38 %) had moderate ACIs
(Fig. 3c). It is surmising that none of the fishing villages had high
adaptive capacity. Similar to sensitivity, the medians of ACI differed
significantly among the fishing villages (chi square: 689.93, p < 0.05, df:
23) indicating that the level of adaptation ability to climate stresses
differed significantly among villages. Among the six coastal taluks, only
Vilathikulam taluk had a moderate adaptive capacity to counter climate
change (ACI: 0.45), while all the other five taluks had low ACI values.
There was no significant difference (chi square: 7.24, p > 0.05, df: 5)
among the median ACIs of the different coastal taluks, as can only be
expected.
Socio-economic adaptive capacity, as measured using SEVISV
framework, presents a relatively different and better scenario. Thoo­
thukudi district as a whole was found to have a moderate capacity to
adapt to climate change (ACI-R: 0.49). At taluk level, three coastal taluks
(Thoothukudi, Sathankulam and Thiruchendur) had moderate levels of
socio-economic adaptive capacity, while two coastal taluks (Ottapi­
daram and Vilathikuam) had low adaptive capacity and one taluk viz.,
Srivaikundam had a high degree of socio-economic ACI (ACI-R: 0.68).
Interestingly, of the 330 census units in the district, half of them had
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Environmental Science and Policy 123 (2021) 114–130
either low (42 %, 137 numbers) or very low (10 %, 32 numbers) ACI-Rs,
while almost one-third had either high (20 %, 65 numbers) or very high
(9%, 29 numbers) ACI-Rs. The remaining 20 % (67 numbers) census
units had moderate ACI-Rs. This is in significant contrast to the reality of
marine fishing villages, wherein none had a high adaptive capacity as
per SEVIPH method. Srivaikundam taluk with a high ACI-R was observed
to have 70 % (48 numbers) of its total census units with high and very
high socio-economic ACI-Rs. Although, Thiruchendur taluk accounted
for 71 % (40 numbers) of its total census units with high and very high
ACI-Rs, the proportion of its very high ACI-R villages/urban areas (18 %,
10 numbers) was relatively lower than that of Srivaikundam taluk (28
%, 19 numbers). When we compare closely the 17 census villages/urban
areas corresponding to 24 marine fishing villages, the realities revealed
by the two methods converge more than diverging. About three-fifth of
the corresponding census units had either low (53 %, nine numbers) or
very low (6%, one unit) ACI-Rs followed by one-third (35 %, six units)
with moderate socio-economic adaptive potential. Only one village
(about 6%) had a very high ACI-R.
In nutshell, it can be inferred that the marine fishing villages have
poor adaptive capacity, whether measured from SEVISV or SEVIPH
framework, as compared to the larger census units across the district
that comprise predominantly of the non-fishing population; secondly,
there is significant difference in adaptive capacity among villages, both
marine and non-marine, as revealed by village and household-level
ACIs, but these differences get masked at taluk or district level due to
aggregation (Fig. 4).
3.4. Cumulative vulnerability of the marine fishing villages
A combination of bio-physical and socio-economic factors shapes the
vulnerability of natural resource-based livelihood systems (Paavola,
2008; Sallu et al., 2010; Islam et al., 2014). Based on CVI values (CVIPH),
nine marine fishing villages (38 %) in the coastal district were identified
as highly vulnerable, eight (33 %) as very highly vulnerable and seven
villages (29 %) as moderately vulnerable (Fig. 3d) with significant dif­
ferences among their median CVIs (chi square: 836.83, p < 0.05, df: 23).
The overall cumulative vulnerability index, as shown by the median CVI
for villages (0.68), shows the high vulnerability of fishing villages in the
district towards climate change impacts. Almost a high degree of
exposure to climate stress (median EI: 0.59), a moderate level of sus­
ceptibility (median SI: 0.52) to impacts caused by these stresses coupled
with poor adaptive capacity (median ACI: 0.38) to cope with possible
climate change impacts have meant high or very high cumulative
vulnerability for almost three-fourth of the marine fishing villages.
While the associations between SIs and EIs (r: 0.27, p > 0.05) as well as
ACIs with those of EIs (r: -0.31, p > 0.05) were found negligible, there
was a significant strong but negative relation between SIs and ACIs (r:
-0.84, p < 0.05). This suggests that either the reduction of sensitivity
pressure or the improvement in adaptive capacity potential or both can
reduce the vulnerability of the fishing villages as exposure is something
one has very little control, at least in the near term. All the taluks had
either very high viz., Thoothukudi (CVI: 0.90), Sathankulam (CVI: 0.87)
and Srivaikundam (CVI: 0.83) or high viz., Ottapidaram (CVI: 0.69),
Thiruchendur (CVI: 0.63) and Vilathikulam (CVI: 0.61) vulnerability
indices. Unlike village-level, median CVIs at taluk-level did not differ
significantly among them (chi square: 7.24, p > 0.05, df: 5), thus
implying similarity of vulnerable status (high) across the coastal taluks.
CVI was similarly estimated for the Cuddalore district (about 300 km
north) at habitation level, taking into account nine broad dimensions of
vulnerability i.e., geographic, demographic, institutional, natural, so­
cial, safety infrastructure, physical, livelihood and economic and it was
found that dimension-wise vulnerability indices tend to differ consid­
erably among different habitations (Saxena et al., 2013).
T. Umamaheswari et al. Environmental Science and Policy 123 (2021) 114–130

3.5. Socio-economic vulnerability levels of socio-economic SI and ACI. Similarly, five of the six coastal
taluks had low SEVISV, with the exception of Ottapidaram taluk, which
The socio-economic vulnerability is largely determined by the in­ had moderate SEVISV level. Moderate SEVISV for Ottapidaram taluk was
ternal structure of any social system that decides sensitivity of societies due to high socio-economic sensitivity (SI-R: 0.69) and low socio-
and communities and also helps to cope with damages from external economic adaptive ability (ACI-R: 0.27). Curiously, when assessed at
shocks. In the present study, the overall socio-economic vulnerability of the village level, the census villages got divided almost equally into high,
the marine fishing villages was found to be low (median SEVIPH: 0.38). moderate and low socio-economic vulnerability categories. High and
Although the village-level SEVIPH values ranged from 0.25 (low) to 0.59 very high socio-economic vulnerabilities were found for nearly one-
(moderate), nearly two-third of the fishing villages (63 %, 15 villages) third of census units i.e., 22 % (72 numbers) and 13 % (42 numbers)
had low SEVIPH and the remaining one-third (37 %, nine villages) had of census units in the district, respectively. Another one-third of census
moderate SEVIPH values (Fig. 3e). SEVIPH values varied significantly villages/urban areas (33 %, 108 numbers) had moderate SEVISV and the
among the fishing villages (chi square: 837.81, p < 0.05, df: 23), in line remaining one-third had low or very low SEVIs (33 %, 108 numbers). It
with the significant difference among the villages in terms of both is noted that the majority of the top 50 most vulnerable census villages
sensitivity and adaptive capacity discussed above (Section 3.2 and were those located in Ottapidaram taluk (34 numbers). This is indicative
Section 3.3). However, majority of villages had lower SEVIPH in spite of of significant disparities and differences across the villages/taluk in the
moderate SI and low ACI values for majority of villages. This can partly district in terms of social and economic capabilities to respond, adapt
be explained by the fact that the ACI in this SEVIPH framework consists and develop resilience to the changing climate events. SEVISV values for
of ACI-DD and ACI-ALA in addition to ACI-E and hence the low values of all census villages/urban areas in the coastal taluks and their standings
the latter got nullified by relatively moderate to high values of the ACI- based on SEVISV, SIs and ACIs are listed in Table S3. Surprisingly, in a
DD. This is a pointer to pay attention, not just to the SEVI values, but minor reversal of the general trend, it was noticed that the 17 census
equally on the SI and ACI values. Among the six coastal taluks, moderate villages/urban areas (corresponding to 24 marine fishing villages), had
socio-economic vulnerabilities were exhibited by three taluks viz., relatively lesser degree of social and economic inequity among them­
Thoothukudi (SEVIPH: 0.50), Srivaikundam (SEVIPH: 0.44) and Sathan­ selves as compared to the rest of the census villages/urban areas in the
kulam (SEVIPH: 0.43) and the villages of these taluks mostly occupied district. Of the 17 census villages/urban areas, only three census villages
the top 10 SEVIPH rankings due to their higher sensitivity and lower (18 %) had high SEVISV as against 35 %, when all census villages are
adaptive potential (Table 3). The other three taluks, Vilathikulam considered. The remaining 82 % (41 %, seven numbers each) had low
(0.30), Ottapidaram (0.36) and Thiruchendur (0.38), exhibited low and moderate levels of social and economic vulnerabilities. While the
socio-economic vulnerability. However, taluk-level SEVIPH did not vary overall social and economic status of households in the fishing villages
significantly among them (chi square: 7.24, p > 0.05, df: 5), thus sug­ might be lower compared to the general non-fishing population, what is
gesting the similarity in the socio-economic vulnerability status across evident here is that, there is relatively less inequity among them.
the coastal taluks.
The macro picture did not change significantly when the socio- 3.6. Decision matrix
economic vulnerability was assessed from the SEVISV framework, but
the micro-level picture emerged as markedly different and more com­ The decision matrix tool plotted using SIs against their ACIs (from
plex. Thoothukudi district as a whole was found to have low socio- SEVIPH framework) identified that 42 % of the marine fishing villages
economic vulnerability (SEVISV-R: 0.30), though it showed moderate (10 numbers) in Thoothukudi district were social and economically most
vulnerable due to their SIs being above the threshold value of 0.52 and
Table 3
their ACIs below or equal the threshold value of 0.38 (Fig. 5a). An equal
Ranking of marine fishing villages in Thoothukudi district based on SEVIPH, SI number of ten villages (42 %) were located in Quadrant I, suggesting
and ACI. their least vulnerable status. It may be noted that, of the identified ten
socio-economically most vulnerable fishing villages, 90 % (nine villages)
Rank based on
Taluk Marine fishing village had moderate SEVIPH values and the remaining 10 % (one village) had
SEVIPH SI ACI low SEVIPH. Since the decision matrix uses the median values of SI and
Srivaikundam Pazhayakayal 1 1 5 ACI separately, instead of the derived SEVIPH values and the associated
Thoothukudi Saveriyarpuram 2 5 1 classification, the goal post gets altered revealing more effectively the
Thoothukudi Thoothukudi North 3 3 3
decision choices for the planners and policy makers. Evolving and
Thoothukudi Loorthammalpuram 4 4 2
Thoothukudi Silluvaipatti 5 2 6 implementing appropriate location-specific strategies on a priority basis
Ottapidaram Vellapatti 6 6 4 can become easier with this tool. Socio-economically highly vulnerable
Sathankulam Periyathalai 7 8 7 villages accounted for 40 % (four villages) in Thoothukudi; 30 % (three
Thiruchendur Alanthalai 8 7 10 villages) in Thiruchendur and 10 % each (one village) in Ottapidaram,
Thiruchendur Punnakayal 9 10 8
Thiruchendur Kulasekarapattinam 10 9 21
Srivaikundam and Sathankulam taluks.
Thiruchendur Kombuthurai 11 12 9 When the decision matrix tool is used to classify the 17 census units
Thiruchendur Veerapandianpattinam 12 11 13 corresponding to the marine fishing villages, assessed using SEVISV
Thiruchendur Singithurai 13 13 15 framework, only 29 % (five villages) fell in the social and economically
Thiruchendur Amalinagar 14 14 12
most vulnerable quadrant (Fig. 5b), only half the number of marine
Thiruchendur Manapad 15 15 11
Ottapidaram Pattinamaruthur 16 16 17 fishing villages identified in Fig. 5a using SEVIPH framework. For the
Vilathikulam Sippikulam 17 17 22 grassroots level planning and developmental interventions, it would be
Thiruchendur Jeevanagar 18 18 16 desirable to err on the side of caution and use the former decision matrix
Vilathikulam Keelavaipar 19 19 19 and address more number of villages. Besides, it can be argued that the
Thoothukudi Thoothukudi South 20 20 20
Srivaikundam Ratchanyapuram 21 22 14
inclusion of community-level responses/perceptions on the impacts of
Vilathikulam Periyasamypuram 22 21 23 climate change would aid in effective micro-level decision-making.
Vilathikulam Vembar 23 23 24 Similar to the decision matrix in this study, the social, ecological and
Ottapidaram Tharuvaikulam 24 24 18 physical dimensions of vulnerability of coastal cities were combined into
Low ranking (1st, 2nd and so on) for SEVIPH, SI and ACI indicates higher socio- a single matrix for rapid and efficient analysis of different aspects of
economic vulnerability, higher socio-economic sensitivity and lower socio- coastal vulnerability (Lins-de-Barros, 2017). Another research used
economic adaptive capacity, respectively, and vice versa on relative basis. livelihood and vulnerability indices to create a decision-making matrix

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T. Umamaheswari et al. Environmental Science and Policy 123 (2021) 114–130

Fig. 5. Decision matrix for (a) marine fishing villages (SEVIPH) and (b) census villages/urban areas corresponding to the fishing villages (SEVISV) in the six coastal
taluks of Thoothukudi district by plotting their SI-Rs against ACI-Rs (Circles represent “villages/urban areas”, the size of the circles represents “population”, the
colours indicate SEVI-R (light green-low; yellow-moderate; orange-high) and the location of the circles reflect the status of vulnerability. Alphanumerics and al­
phabets indicate the names of marine fishing units and their corresponding census units, respectively, as shown in Table 2).

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T. Umamaheswari et al. Environmental Science and Policy 123 (2021) 114–130

Fig. 6. SEVI frameworks showing the driver and buffer indicators for (a) a representative socio-economically high vulnerable marine fishing village (Vellapatti
village of Ottapidaram taluk) and (b) its corresponding census unit (Keela Arasadi village). The bar lengths represent the indicator index values (0 to 1) and the
colours indicate their driver/buffer nature, i.e., the colours red, orange and yellow (yellow with >0.5 arm length for sensitivity and yellow with ≤0.5 arm length for
adaptive capacity) being the drivers for high sensitivity/low adaptive capacity and the colours dark green, light green and yellow (yellow with ≤0.5 arm length for
sensitivity and yellow with >0.5 arm length for adaptive capacity) being the buffers for low sensitivity/high adaptive capacity.

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T. Umamaheswari et al. Environmental Science and Policy 123 (2021) 114–130

for identifying and proposing effective climate adaptation strategies and Table 4
achieving sustainable fisheries livelihoods (Jeevamani et al., 2021). Drivers and buffers of socio-economic vulnerability in general for the marine
These studies show that decision matrices may be useful in climate fishing villages of Thoothukudi district and proposed interventions.
change adaptation strategies. Sub- Driversa Buffersa Possible Outcome
criteriaa Interventions
3.7. Drivers and buffers of socio-economic vulnerability Intensify the access
to selective fishing
Characteristics of the various social and economic indicators for the methods, and
aquaculture
most vulnerable village (e.g. Vellapatti in Ottapidaram taluk) have been
practices; reduction
provided (Fig. 6a). It has been noted from Fig. 6a that two-third (67 %, of fishing pressure;
35 indicators) of the total 52 social and economic indicators act as technology
drivers, and only one-third (33 %, 17 numbers) of indicators act as transfer;
Create awareness Enhanced
buffers making the Vellapatti village what it is. In this village, the low CFA, FS,
on conservation livelihood security
adaptive capacity drivers are relatively high (23 indicators) compared to S-F
I/U, LF,
A, C and sustainable and resilience of
the sensitivity drivers (12 indicators) and they shall be focussed for in­ MF, SC,
exploitation of fisheries to climate
ShF
terventions. A general account of the drivers responsible for increasing fishery/local vagaries
the SEV and the buffers that mitigate the vulnerability of the fishing resources through
co-management;
villages (24 numbers) is established (Table 4). In particular, all AC-ALA
Work out suitable
indicators are drivers of SEV and thus, identification and promotion of mechanisms/
appropriate alternate livelihood practices with adequate training and strategies for
financial assistance shall get priority attention. Approaches such as effective discharge
of industrial/
flexibility within fisheries operations, regional relocation and diversifi­
domestic effluents
cation of livelihoods provide adaptation ability to uncertainties for Improve financial
climate-sensitive fishing communities (Salmi, 2005) and livelihood allocations to
diversification helps them to build financial endowments and reduce create flood/
risks (Deb and Haque, 2016). In the Indian context, both vertical and cyclone shelters,
community health
horizontal diversification approaches are followed by the fishing com­
centres, common
munities in which the former strategy seeks options locally or service centres etc.;
non-locally within the fisheries sector and the latter seeks options Conduct
beyond the fishing industry in a local or non-local setting (Saligrama and sensitization and
Improved social
Koriya, 2008). Social issues, such as tension between local communities awareness
condition and
ACGFC, campaigns on
and immigrants, are prevalent in non-local options, and thus local op­ AWI, gender equity;
strengthens the
tions within or outside the fishing industry can be considered for coastal
CLAY, education; disaster
communities;
diversification of livelihoods. S-S DC, IDM DMP, EF, management
Well-informed
Interactions with the communities of the fishing villages have shown GD, KACC, practices;
society on impacts
SaF, SI, SS, Take steps to
that people lack the skills to pursue alternative livelihoods. To aid in of climate and
WM achieve universal
evidence-based policy intervention at community-level, the training literacy especially
strategies for
infusing resilience
needs were assessed and shortlisted for location-specific livelihood women and ensure
diversification (Table 5). The indicative interventions and the possible 100 % school
expected outcome for the five components, viz., social, fishery, eco­ enrolment;
Create social
nomic, development drivers and alternate livelihood activity have been learning and
derived for the marine fishing villages in the district based on field in­ knowledge sharing
teractions (Table 4). They need to be prioritized for ushering in the platforms through
climate resilient fisheries and the community. The proposed measures institutional
programs
are aimed at mitigating and reducing vulnerability in general and tackle
Extend provision of
the more pressing current issues in marine fisheries management such as adequate and
increased fishing pressure, adverse effects of bottom trawling, dumping improved fishing
of industrial wastes and thermal pollutions, heavy metal contamination, implements,
discharge of untreated sewage, over-fishing and port related activities infrastructures and Reduced
CL, ELS,
services to fishers; indebtedness and
(Johnson, 2013). AC-E
FC, FDM,
ACF, IE Increase the access improved
The census village corresponding to the Vellapatti marine fishing ICF, L/C,
to financial economic status of
MFOL
village is Keela Arasadi in the Ottapidaram taluk, which has also been incentives and fishers
identified as highly vulnerable (SEVISV-R: 0.65) with moderate socio- credit facilities to
meet the capital
economic SI (SI-R: 0.57) and very low socio-economic ACI (ACI-R:
and operational
0.10). Contributing drivers / factors (12 indicators), as shown in Fig. 6b, requirements
for its high sensitivity in the village are a relatively high proportion of Priority attention
total fisherfolk / full-time fishers (>50 % of total population), less extent on awareness,
of common usage natural resources i.e., terrestrial and freshwater re­ AP, collection and
Improved
CWFB, AD, CT, assortment of
sources (only 11 % of total village area), remote locality from urban AC-DD DP, EI, DRA, LUP, anthropogenic
community based
areas and hospital services, and low level of annual rainfall (230 mm). adaptation and
IESG, RFP, SR pollutants and
resilience
On the other hand, social drivers for low adaptive capacity are low URB establishment of
prevalence/availing of amenities such as safe drinking water sources, early warning
systems
sanitation facilities and clean energy sources, as well as high population
AL, DTr, Encourage fishery Diversification of
growth rate (26 % increase than population during 2001). Likewise, the AC-ALA
HD, HP,
–
diversification/ fishery and non-
economic drivers for low adaptive capacity in the village are low (continued on next page)
ownership of transport/communication assets and livestock, low market

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T. Umamaheswari et al. Environmental Science and Policy 123 (2021) 114–130

Table 4 (continued ) HC, CI and GR (social dimension) and EDR for economic dimension. The
Sub- Driversa Buffersa Possible Outcome SEVI framework used for vulnerability assessment of census villages/
criteriaa Interventions urban areas can be used to define the general socio-economic charac­
IGA, SP, livestock and non- fishery based
teristics responsible for/against the vulnerable feature in the assessing
Tr, TS, fishery enterprises livelihood and villages/urban areas. They can also be used to understand the general
YD where feasible climate resilience vulnerability status for the marine fishing villages. Drivers may deal
fisheries with effective long-, medium- and short-term initiatives by diverting
a
Table 1 can be referred for the expansion of abbreviations for sub-criteria, ample funds in phased manners with specific targets and performance
drivers and buffers. indicators to review the progress. The status of buffers can be main­
tained through monitoring and they can also be further strengthened
with limited focus/funds. The data related to the indicators used in the
Table 5 framework are exhaustively obtained by government agencies on a
Options for alternate livelihood activities with training and target groups in the regular basis i.e., annual/quinquennial/decadal, ensuring the credi­
marine fishing villages of Thoothukudi district. bility, continuity and broad scope of information. The framework in­
Alternate Livelihood Name of the marine fishing Target groups dicators can also help to measure the efficiency of any action taken to
Activities villages in which training need to mitigate and cope with the impacts of climate change.
be imparted
The SEVIPH framework with 52 indicators and the SEVISV framework
i. Non-fishery oriented with 23 indicators might at times become unwieldy when faced with
Tailoring, goat rearing, All fishing villages of the district Fisherwomen
limited resources, datasets and time especially at the grassroots and
garments and pickle
making
provincial levels. A limited set of essential indicators among them were
Beautician training, Tharuvaikulam, Fisherwomen, shortlisted, without compromising the necessary reliability and validity
mobile repairing, Saveriyarpuram, Silluvaipatti, unemployed youths of the frameworks, to serve as a handy guide to gauge the vulnerability
fashion jewellery Vellapatti, Thoothukudi North of communities in coastal villages and fishing hamlets. Table S1 and
making, home-made and Loorthammalpuram
Table S2 pinpoint the selected indicators, 18 indicators from SEVIPH and
products like candle
making, spices 12 indicators from SEVISV, chosen using the criteria of higher variability
powder making, (variance) and their relevance as drivers and buffers in the present
detergent powder context. These indicators together account for nearly two-third of total
making and jam variance demonstrated in the dataset. Higher variance means the
making
ii. Fishery oriented
respective indicator’s ability to differentiate the coastal / fishing villages
Value added products All fishing villages of the district Self help group in terms of sensitivity or adaptive capacity from one another, and hence
like dry fish, fish/ (SHG) fisherwomen their utility to identify specific areas of intervention. However, some
shrimp pickle, fish indicators were dropped (rainfall, groundwater development, and
soup, fish cutlet, fish
malnutrition) due to lack of data at village level even though they are
rolls and fish balls
Marine cage farming Fishermen, useful at the taluk / district level. Further studies using these frame­
(Cobia, Lobster, Kombuthurai, Singithurai, unemployed fisher works in other regions would lead to their further validation and
Crab) Veerapandianpatitnam, youths refinement. This study can be further enhanced by assessing the SEVI at
Sippikulam, Keelavaipar, Fishermen, SHG geo-tagged building level to highlight the vulnerable buildings/house at
Manapad, Tharuvaikulam, fisherwomen,
Seaweed farming
Thoothukudi North unemployed fisher
each of the selected villages.
youths
Sea safety, signals and
All fishing villages of the district Fishermen
4. Conclusion and way forward
rescue operations
SHG fisherwomen,
Ornamental fish Fishing villages with freshwater
unemployed youths
Marine fisheries are prone to climate externalities thus affecting
culture resources sustainability of fish stock and impacting the livelihood of fishers. The
/ fisher youths
Fishermen, CVIPH and SEVIPH assessments in fishing households demonstrate sub­
Engine repair and
maintenance
All fishing villages of the district unemployed fisher stantial changes in climate parameters and their consequent effect in
youths
terms of fish species distribution, shift in fishing grounds, loss of existing
major fishery and migration of fishes. These changes, along with
accessibility, no access of irrigation in net sown area and higher explo­ increased living costs, high fishing costs and economic losses due to
ration of available groundwater resources (141 %). At the same time, spoilage negatively impact fishers’ livelihoods, reduce their adaptive
there are buffers (11 indicators) which helped push the sensitivity index capacity and constrains from choosing alternate livelihoods requiring
of the village to the moderate (Fig. 6b) such as low prevalence of certain capital investment beside new skillsets. The livelihood context is
vulnerable communities (27 % of total population) and agricultural further vitiated by increasing anthropogenic pollutants, unbridled
labourers (10 %), low distribution of smaller farmlands (<50 %), low industrialisation and unplanned urbanisation. Many fishing villages in
population density (163 persons/km2), less net sown area (<1%), lower coastal belt of Thoothukudi district were found to be vulnerable. The
economic dependency ratio, higher literacy rate (>80 %), good com­ issues are intertwined and thus complex, posing challenges to find any
munity infrastructure and housing conditions and less variance in easy solutions that can be effective. This study provides evidence to
gender ratio (996 females to 1000 males). evolve location-specific interventions drawn at the village-level aimed
Considering all 17 census villages/urban areas (corresponding to 24 at diversifying livelihoods, thereby improving the overall adaptive ca­
marine fishing villages), in general, the drivers for higher sensitivity pacity. While the local communities have little control over the climatic
were SMF and FP in social aspect, and AR and DNR in economic aspect, factors and the sensitivity indicators, all they could effectively do to
whereas for lower adaptive capacity, the drivers were PGR (social reduce vulnerability, with the enabling role played by the three tiers of
dimension) and TC, AM, NIA, GD and LP (economic dimension). The local government, is improve their scores on social and economic in­
buffers for low socio-economic sensitivity were identified to be AL, FSM, dicators of adaptive capacity. Education and attitudinal change along
SCST and PD (social aspect), and NSA, DNT and DNH (economic aspect), with supporting regulations need to be brought about for the co-
while the buffers responsible for higher adaptive capacity were ES, HA, management of resources, wherein the local communities gain greater
control and say over the fishing resources. Capacity building of local

128
T. Umamaheswari et al.
governments on climate change, vulnerability assessment and mitiga­
tion would be integral to this strategy. The vulnerability assessment
results from both the frameworks, SEVIPH and SEVISV, were found to be
useful for planning as each reveal the extent of socio-economic vulner­
ability in climate change scenario. While both of them share similarities,
SEVIPH appears to be a more appropriate tool for gauging the mood and
status of fisher households, making it as a more participative and
bottom-up approach in building community confidence and resilience in
the long-term. The SEVISV shall be used as a complementary tool to
inform the broader intervention plans at the whole taluk/district level as
it has brought out the possible differences (inequities) between the
fishing population and the general population, otherwise sharing the
same habitat in the coastal district. On the flip side, SEVIPH demands
household level data and is more suitable for cross-sectional study than
temporal one, while SEVISV allows for effective scaling up and lends
itself easily for both spatial and temporal comparisons.
Importantly, the study has demonstrated the need to integrate the
micro-narratives and grassroots scenarios into the macro-level regional
and national climate change action plans being put in place. In India, the
National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) has been developed to
improve the nation’s ability to respond to the impacts of climate change,
and State Action Plans on Climate Change (SAPCC) have been developed
by various States/Union Territories under the NAPCC. Climate change
adaptation rather than mitigation is of considerable significance in the
NAPCC/SAPCC and a central sector scheme viz., National Adaptation
Fund on Climate Change (NAFCC) has been established to support
concrete adaptation measures that reduce the adverse effects of climate
change affecting community, sector and States (PIB, 2018). For State
level action plans, scientific assessment of vulnerability has been high­
lighted to identify and prioritize adaptation strategies and to define the
most vulnerable areas/sectors (MoEF, 2010). In this context, the
frameworks demonstrated and validated in this study could be used for
both micro- (households and village) and the macro- (district, State and
county) level assessments as well as development of climate change
action plans to strengthen the resilience of the communities against
climate change scenarios.
Funding support
The study was supported by Department of Environment, Govern­
ment of Tamil Nadu, Chennai under the National Adaptation Fund on
Climate Change (NAFCC), Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate
Change (MoEFCC), Government of India and Tamil Nadu Dr. J. Jaya­
lalithaa Fisheries University, Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu, India.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Thavasiyandi Umamaheswari: Conceptualization, Data curation,
Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration,
Writing - original draft. Gopalrajan Sugumar: Conceptualization,
Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Resources,
Software, Supervision. Pandian Krishnan: Conceptualization, Formal
analysis, Methodology, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization,
Writing - review & editing. Pachampalayam Shanmugam Ananthan:
Data curation, Formal analysis, Resources, Software, Validation, Visu­
alization, Writing - review & editing. Arur Anand: Methodology, Re­
sources, Software, Visualization. Jeyapaul Joyson Joe Jeevamani:
Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - original draft.
Ranganalli Somashekharappa Mahendra: Methodology, Resources,
Software, Visualization. John Amali Infantina: Formal analysis,
Writing - original draft. Cherukumalli Srinivasa Rao: Methodology,
Resources, Software, Supervision, Writing - review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
129
Environmental Science and Policy 123 (2021) 114–130
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary material related to this article can be found, in the
online version, at doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2021.05.009.
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