T. N, Prakash KammardiA. B, Tejaswini2016-05-232016-05-232013-12-06Th-10702http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/66229The present study attempts to show the variations in climatic factors and their impact on arecanut productivity, coping methods employed by farmers to climate change and importance of ABCS in the present day climate change context in Western Ghats (WG) region of Karnataka. In WG it was found that, the means of climatic factors in three decades (1982-1991, 1992-2001 and 2002-2010) were statistically significant with respect to daily temperature, daily relative humidity and annual Rainfall. RainfalI during fruit development period and evening relative humidity had significant negative effect on Yield of arecanut. Majority of the farmers (66 %) employed both micro irrigation and diversification, 21 per cent of farmers employed diversification, 4 per cent of farmers employed drip irrigation and 5 percent of farmers employed other methods to cope with climate change. From estimated multinomial logit model, it was found that education, income and region had greater significant effect on the decisions of the farmers to adapt above methods. Lack of information, lack of capital, poor potential for irrigation and shortage of labour were the four major barriers in adapting coping methods for climate change. The CDI was very low in case of Maidan region (0.09) indicating less diversity whereas in WG it was 0.45 indicating relatively more diversity. The TDI in Soppinabetta system of WG was 0.95 indicating high tree diversity. Diversity of trees in Home garden was larger in case of WG (TDI of 0.70) compared to Home gardens in Maidan region (TDI of 0.57). In WG carbon stock per acre was more in case of Arecanut garden (41.92 tonnes per acre) followed by Soppinabetta (30.99 tonnes per acre), Home garden (8.79 tonnes per acre) and Silvi-horti (5.28 tonnes per acre).Ecological ratios showed that, WG region was more productive ecologically and economically than Maidan region.encarbon, climate, costs, precipitation, yields, crops, climatic change, area, carbon sequestration, economicsThesis