Assessing climate change and heat stress responses in the Tarai region of Nepal

Abstract

This paper intends to analyse responses of the working people to heat stress in Nepal's Tarai region. Here, the heat stress responses refer to the working environments- indoor and outdoor settings, prevailing diseases, and adaptive measures by the workers. Data were gathered from the sample households by using household survey, observation, and informal discussions. Environmental conditions in terms of heat exposure in the working areas have been measured with heat index, humidity index, and WBGT, based on the HOTHAPS approach. The findings are that: the average temperature during the peak hot months reached to over 39°C and the environmental conditions in the selected factories during the hot summer months were too hot to the workers to work continuously during the day, where there was inadequacy of facilities to combat against the hot. Males were more exposed than females to the heat due to heavy type of works in outdoor settings. Few workers found to have adapted coping measures such as shift in working time, wearing thin cotton clothes, etc but they were inadequate against the heat stress. More quantitative measurements of workers' health effects and productivity loss will be of interest for future works.