Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Natural Resource Sustainability Versus Livelihood Resilience: Groundwater Exploitation Strategies Under Prolonged Droughts, Ram Ranjan

Ram Ranjan

When faced with depleting natural resources such as groundwater, farmers often rely upon a combination of resources such as financial and social capital along with natural capital in order to sustain their livelihoods. This paper addresses the problem of providing livelihoods resilience for farmers in water scarce regions where traditional capabilities and assets face the threat of becoming unviable. It is argued here that attaining livelihood resilience will entail a transformation process involving tradeoffs between different capital assets where it may be optimal for a farmer to forego the objective of maintaining groundwater sustainability. However, mere forgoing of groundwater may …