7 Learning through Participation in a Weather Information System in West Bengal, India

In India, rural livelihoods are crucially important, as they employ over 70 percent of the population; however, increasingly they are being adversely impacted by climate change (World Bank 2014). Agriculture in semiarid regions is especially affected, as it is dependent on seasonal rainfall. Pumped irrigation is both costly and difficult because of water scarcity as well as the dry climate. Small-scale and marginal farmers are particularly vulnerable, as they have limited economic, educational, or informational resources to allow them to adapt to climate change.