INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE SHIFTING ON AGRICULTURAL AND DAILY LIFE ACTIVITIES IN LOWER SINDH PROVINCE OF PAKISTAN

Abstract

Climate change not only influences agriculture activities, but also has certain effects on daily human activities, as well as on human health. Keeping in view the concerns of local people over climate shifting and available research gap on the issue, the researchers conducted a study, in which the perceptions of local farmers regarding climate shifting (temperature and precipitation) were gathered in district Hyderabad, Sindh province of Pakistan. The quantified data from 200 respondents were re-collected on a reliable and valid scale and analyzed through SPSS and AMOS software. The results revealed that the significant changes are being occurred in summer (r²=0.96; M=6.78) and winter seasons (r²=0.71; M=6.57) leaving bad effects on human health (r²=0.96) and behavior of the local population (r²=0.70). In addition, the change in the cropping calendar, i.e., timing of sowing (r²=0.69; M=8.42) and harvesting (r²=0.79; M=8.27) of different crops have been altered due to changes in local weather patterns. Since the local farmers are also facing seed germination (r²=0.57; M=7.98) problems, it is therefore recommended that concerned authorities/ departments should revise the agricultural calendar. Besides this, respondents were in opinion that actual summer starts even before the vacation and cold season starts when winter vacations ended, thus, the government and other concerned departments should reconsider or reschedule the vacation regulation policy (r²=0.70) at least at the provincial level.