Socio-Economic Vulnerability to Climate Change in the Brahmaputra Basin (BRAHMATWINN)

Work package lead of an international partnership and research network in the socio-economic, environmental and economic impacts of climate change in upper Brahmaputra river basins with the ultimate aim of producing stakeholder weighted vulnerability maps as well as informing future geohazard risk scenarios based upon the potential changes in the fluvial regimes with climate change. Partners include UK and EU partners and research institutions in Bhutan, China and India.

The BRAHMATWINN project was the basis for the development of the SEVA methodology – (Socio-environmental Vulnerability Assessment) which has subsequently been taken up in a series of FAO activities. The SEVA methodology uses both EO data (road network, land use, effort surface etc.) and the census at a community level to derive indicators for sustainable livelihood framework classes (SLF) or “capitals” which are subsequently ranked by significance to vulnerability by a profile of stakeholders.