Shubhangi Mathur
When climate change is no longer a headline, but the quiet rhythm shaping everyday life
Climate change is often discussed in terms of numbers, targets, policies, adaptation frameworks, and financial mechanisms. These tools are important, but during my fieldwork in Uttarakhand and nearby Himalayan regions, I realised something crucial: climate adaptation is not waiting for policy documents to arrive. It is already happening, quietly, daily, and creatively in villages, farms, homes, and forests. This is not an abstract future risk but a lived reality felt through drying springs, unpredictable rainfall, failing crops, and rising energy needs.
Over the last few years, I have travelled across Uttarakhand and North India, interacting with diverse local stakeholders and using surveys, interviews, GPS-based documentation, and observation to understand how Himalayan communities are adjusting their lives to a changing climate.
Climate vulnerability in the Himalayas: more than environmental stress
The Himalayan region is frequently described as “fragile,” but vulnerability here is not just ecological, but also deeply social and economic. Erratic and declining rainfall now arrives outside traditional crop cycles. Longer dry spells and early frosts affect soil fertility. Melting glaciers and drying springs reduce water availability. Deforestation increases landslides and soil erosion. At the same time, rising temperatures increase energy demand while weakening already fragile supply chains.
These environmental shifts are not abstract trends; they shape everyday life in tangible and exhausting ways.
• Marginal farmers face repeated crop losses
• Women and children walk longer distances to collect water
• Households depend on wood-fired cooking, increasing health risks
• Diesel-based irrigation raises costs and deepens income insecurity
Policy frameworks acknowledge these challenges, yet their success is often measured through documentation rather than lived outcomes.
Learning from the ground: what communities are already doing
In 2025, I visited villages across Uttarakhand, including Rudraprayag, Chamoli, Uttarkashi, Dehradun, Haridwar, Almora, Pauri, and Tehri Garhwal, engaging with farmers, women’s self help groups, forest users, NGOs, and local stakeholders. Through household interviews, structured questionnaires, GPS-based spatial documentation, and community interactions, a different story of climate adaptation emerged.
Across sectors, adaptation was practical, low-cost, and deeply contextual:
Agriculture
Farmers are diversifying crops, practising organic and low-input farming, using vermicomposting, cultivating in polyhouses, and experimenting with water-efficient crops. In many villages, aromatic and organic food processing has created additional income streams, reducing dependence on climate-sensitive monocultures.
Water
Communities are reviving traditional spring systems, constructing rainwater harvesting structures, and managing water collectively, often without external funding, but with shared responsibility.
Energy
Rooftop solar panels, biogas units, and micro-hydropower initiatives are reducing dependence on diesel and firewood, cutting costs while improving health outcomes.
Forestry
Community-led afforestation and rotational grazing practices are helping restore degraded forests while maintaining livelihoods.
None of these practices emerged from policy manuals. They evolved from experience, ecological knowledge, and necessity.
Housing, Heritage and Climate Resilience
One of the most striking findings of my research was the role of traditional housing systems. Often dismissed as “backwards,” they are proving to be resilient in resisting earthquakes, landslides, and fires. These structures naturally regulate temperature and utilise materials found nearby. In many Himalayan villages, people are rediscovering mud-stone and wood-based construction not as symbols of the past, but as climate-resilient solutions for the present.
These homes naturally regulate temperature, withstand local climatic stresses, and rely on materials sourced directly from the landscape. Some villages are now transforming such houses into eco-stays and model homes, blending ancestral knowledge with contemporary needs.
One such village is Chauki in Chamoli, Uttarakhand, where traditional houses are being reimagined as eco-stays and model homes that blend ancestral knowledge with contemporary needs. Initiatives like Gauraaj – The Village Living demonstrate how sustainable tourism can coexist with ecological sensitivity.
Built using locally available materials such as stone, mud, pine needles, and straw, these structures follow age-old Himalayan construction practices that naturally regulate temperature and adapt to local climatic conditions. More than a homestay, Gauraaj offers a community-based living experience where tourism remains non-extractive, supports local livelihoods, and preserves cultural heritage and fragile mountain ecosystems showing how traditional Pahadi wisdom can shape climate-resilient development.
What does it look like on the ground ?
The outcomes of these community-led adaptations are tangible:
• Environmental gains: Reduced water wastage, revival of springs, increased renewable energy use, and improved forest management.
• Economic stability: Lower fuel costs, more stable farm incomes, and growth of small green enterprises such as organic food processing and solar services.
• Social strengthening: Stronger community networks, better access to government schemes, and increased collaboration and sometimes even through simple digital platforms.
• Health improvements: Reduced indoor air pollution, cleaner water access, and lower disease burden.
• Empowerment: Women leading biogas initiatives and farming collectives, youth engaging in sustainable innovation, and local farmers emerging as climate knowledge hubs. These are not pilot projects designed for reports. They are living systems of adaptation.
Adaptation beyond policy documents
Global frameworks like Nationally Determined Contributions and adaptation plans are important. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change AR6 Synthesis Report (2023) also emphasises that effective adaptation must be locally grounded and inclusive. However, my research highlights a persistent gap: formal adaptation frameworks rarely capture the depth and effectiveness of grassroots responses.
Recent Himalayan studies support this observation. Research on indigenous knowledge systems in Uttarakhand shows how rural women and local communities contribute meaningfully to climate adaptation through practices in agriculture, water management, and livelihoods. Yet these efforts remain marginal in policy conversations, often treated as supplementary rather than central.
What takes place on the ground demonstrates something different: climate adaptation is not being newly introduced, but continuously lived.
Why people-centric climate governance matters ?
Community-led adaptation challenges the idea that resilience must flow top-down. Instead, it shows that:
• Adaptation is already embedded in daily life
• Local knowledge is not outdated, and it is adaptive and dynamic
• Participation and trust matter more than prescriptions
• Policies work best when they support, not replace, local practices
In several villages, simply helping communities connect with existing government schemes— such as subsidies for solar energy or drip irrigation amplified the impact of practices they were already experimenting with.
Rethinking adaptation: from plans to practice
By foregrounding voices from the field, this research reframes climate adaptation as an everyday reality, not a distant policy objective. The Himalayan experience reminds us that resilience is not built only through finance and frameworks, but through people, practices, and local wisdom.
If climate policy is to be effective, it must begin where climate change is felt most deeply: in the lived experiences of communities already adapting, every single day.
About the contributor
Shubhangi Mathur is a Geography Graduate and Climate Consultant. She is an Environment Researcher from Jaipur, India.
Disclaimer
All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.
Read more at IMPRI:
Why Climate Policy Needs Women’s Leadership – Not Just Women as ‘Beneficiaries’
The Unjust Climate: How History, Faith, and Power Shape our Planetary Crisis
Acknowledgement
This article was posted by Varisha Sharma, a research intern at IMPRI.
