A Study On The Livelihood Resilience Of The Households Under Climate Disasters In The Loess Plateau

Global warming has become one of the current concerns.In recent years,the frequent occurrence of extreme weather events(such as drought,hail,frost disasters,etc.)has a serious impact on agricultural systems(such as apple plantation)and threatened the livelihood security of households in the Loess Plateau.The annual precipitation in this area is relatively small and the long-term drought leads to the occurrence of diseases and insect pests,resulting in a significant decline in apple quality.The occurrence of extreme weather events such as heavy rain,freezing disasters,hail,windstorms affect apple fruiting during flowering,which reduces apple yield.Households are the mainstay of agriculture,and some households rely mainly on agricultural income to maintain their livelihood.The occurrence of disasters directly or indirectly affects the agricultural income of households causes serious economic losses,which have affected households enthusiasm for farming and negative adaptation(such as giving up farming,going out to work,etc.).Therefore,It is of great significance to improve the household of livelihoods resilience and the factors affecting the resilience of livelihoods after the impact of extreme weather events.Based on the sustainable livelihood framework,adaptive behavior theory and resilience theory,this study builds a research framework for the livelihood resilience of post-disaster households based on the literature review.In the context of climate disasters,this study takes apple households on the Loess Plateau as the research object,and uses factor analysis to assess the livelihood resilience of households from the perspective of objective,subjective,subjective and objective(integrated).The objective resilience,subjective resilience and integrated resilience are divided into four categories using quantile regression: low,medium,higher and high,respectively.We test theoretical hypothesis that “individual characteristics,technical measures and information accessibility have a positive impact on livelihood resilience” and “External environment is negatively correlated with livelihood resilience”," Family characteristics and land characteristics have uncertain effects on resilience" and "in the composition of objective livelihood resilience,buffer capacity plays a decisive role;and in the integrated livelihood resilience,psychological perception plays a decisive role".This syudy provides theoretical support for improving the level of livelihood resilience and developing differentiated policy recommendations.The results show that:(1)Different types of subjective livelihood resilience have different influencing factors.The factors affecting low resilience are uncertain;non-engineering measures and distance from agricultural stores are positively correlated with moderate resilience;non-engineering measures have a positive impact on higher resilience,while household farming time has a negative impact on higher resilience;the negative position in the village affects high resilience.(2)Different types of objective livelihood resilience have different influencing factors.The area of cultivated land and the distance from the farmer’s market are positively affecting the objective resilience.In addition to having no significant effect on high resilience,the durables goods index has a significant impact on other types of resilience;the area of cultivated land and the distance to the farmer’s market are the common influencing factors of medium and higher resilience;individual characteristics,family characteristics,land characteristics,technical measures,external environment and information accessibility all affect high resilience.(3)Different types of integrated livelihood resilience have different influencing factors.The cultivated land topography has a positive impact on medium,higher and high resilience;whether the village cadres have a positive impact on the medium resilience,non-agricultural income,cultivated land area and the number of government jobs have a negative impact on the medium resilience;non-engineering measures have a positive impact on higher resilience;the number of cadres in the village is positively affecting high resilience.(4)Buffering capacity and self-organization capacity are important attributes of objective resilience.Psychological perception is an important component of integreted resilience.Based on the above conclusions,five policy recommendations are proposed:(1)Popularize knowledge of climate change and climate disasters,and expand the knowledge reserve of households.(2)Take measures to improve the resilience of different types of households according to the differences among households.(3)increase investment in rural infrastructure and informatization.(4)Encourage households to join cooperatives and purchase disaster insurance.(5)Develop and promote drought-resistant apple varieties.