A Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Design Framework: The Case of Small-scale Farmers in Western Honduras

Abstract

Climate change is now affecting every known society. Small-scale farmers in low-income countries are especially vulnerable to climate change because they depend heavily on rain, seasonality patterns, and known temperature ranges. Prioritizing the efforts of building climate change resilience and adaptive capacity for small-scale farmers is essential in achieving Sustainable Development Goals 13, 1, and 2. An important first step towards those efforts is to assess the climate change vulnerability among the population. We propose a Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Framework Design Framework (CCVA-DF) to guide the design of innovative digital CCVA solutions to enhance the adaptive capacity and climate change resilience of small-scale farmers. The framework outlines modern methods for vulnerability data collection and processing through Remote Sensing and GIS, advanced spatial analysis and modeling for measuring vulnerabilities, and visual analytics to support decision-making in the planning and implementation of suitable interventions. The framework is instantiated into a web application that is used by a real-world organization for transforming household resilience in Western Honduras. The CCVA-DF showcases novel measures of vulnerability using geospatial technology. It provides guidelines to design digital vulnerability assessment tools that can be used by researchers and practitioners worldwide to tackle climate change challenges.