The Impacts of Climate-induced Changes and Related Disasters on Socioeconomic Conditions and Livelihood Sources of the Mountain Communities in Gilgit-Baltsitan, Pakistan

Mountain regions in Gilgit-Baltistan are among the most fragile environments in the face of climate threats although they are rich repositories and providers of ecosystem services and goods. Over the past years, the poor and marginalized communities living across mountain regions have been facing pressing challenges due to climate-induced changes and related disasters. To better understand how climate change impacts socioeconomic conditions of mountain communities and their livelihood sources in Gilgit-Baltistan, I conducted fieldwork in the summer of 2017 in one of the mountainous villages located in Gojal, known as Passu. I conducted 35 household surveys and 15 in-depth interviews among the residents of Passu village in order to collect their observations and past experiences about their own socioeconomic vulnerability led by climate-induced changes and related disasters. The interviews and household surveys responses’ confirmed that climate-induced changes and their impacts have already been felt by the residents of Passu village. Their perspectives reflect that with time, residents of Passu village have reduced their reliance on climatesensitive sectors such as agriculture in order to reduce their socioeconomic vulnerability and are now more engaged in different professions to earn income. Governmental and nongovernmental organizations implemented different projects to assess and monitor multiple hazards that may associate with glacial lake outburst flood events. Although climate-induced changes and related disasters vary substantially across regions and agro-ecological zones in Gilgit-Baltistan, my research shows that vulnerability to the effects of climate change remains in those mountainous villages where the majority of the population is still dependent on agriculture and tend to have a poor adaptive capacity and weak institutional structures.