Landless and marginal communities are the most severely affected, especially in environmentally higher-risk areas, such as hills and semi-arid plains. Within poor households, the negative effects are borne disproportionately by women and female children.
This is the environmental dimensions to the “feminisation of poverty.” Gender specific effects arise from pre-existing inequalities, notably, unequal gender divisions of labour, gender inequalities in access to productive resources, especially arable land, and associated technology; women’s unequal access to knowledge systems and decision making authority at all levels, including decision about management of natural resources.