Community Preparedness, Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Variability and Change in Kajiado County, Kenya
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Date
2022
Authors
Mutua, Kitheka
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Kenyatta University
Abstract
Climate change has led to an average of 5% reduction in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of developing countries. Climate change is characterized by changes in climate indicators, for example an estimated 5% increase in global temperatures leads to 10% decline in agriculture productivity. These changes require adoption of adaptation and mitigation strategies among inhabitants of the developing countries. However, there is insufficient knowledge on the indigenous knowledge based early warning systems and indicators that have guided the local community in resource use and management as well as the adaptation and mitigation strategies adopted by pastoralists in Kajiado County. Similarly, the socio-economic impacts of climate variability and change on livelihoods of pastoralists in the County is not well understood. The general objective of the study was to assess community preparedness, adaptation mitigation and the existing communities‟ local knowledge-based early warning indicators with an ultimate aim of generating information that will be useful in climate variability and change early warning, preparedness, adaptation and mitigation. The study addressed knowledge gap by use of mixed method research design, applying the use of multiple methods of data collection and analysis. Multi-stage sampling was applied where stratified sampling was used to select two sub counties, simple random sampling was used in selection of households for administration of the questionnaire and snowballing procedure in identification of key informants. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Science. Quantitative data was analyzed using various multi nomial regressions and thematic analysis done on qualitative data. The results showed that there was an indigenous based knowledge system composed of early warning indicators within Kajiado County. However, most of the respondents were not aware of the early warning indicators. The most commonly used early warning indicator was flowering and shedding of leaves by some plants (48.7%). Others included observation of animal behaviour (11.2%), high temperatures and wind direction (8.6%), orientation of stars (8.4%), shape of the moon (7.1%), appearance of red ants (6.9%), migration of birds and wilder beast (4.8%), bleating of goats (3.0%), colour of sky (0.8.%), and appearance of cyclones (0.5%). Observation of the shoat‟s, intestines was also reported during the focus group discussion. The adaptation strategies adopted by the respondents were grouped into water conservation strategies, sustainable land use strategies, cropping management strategies, livelihood/income diversification strategies, food security and resilience related strategies and livestock management strategies. The adoption of these strategies was significantly influenced by socioeconomic variables that included the age and gender of the household head, cost of water, herd sizes and selling price of cattle, education level of the household head and the formal employment. The elements of extreme weather condition that included drought, floods and extreme temperatures had significant impact on household socioeconomic variables that included size of arable land, food aid, land tenure, number of meals taken by a household per day, household income from formal employment and number of livestock kept. In view of these findings, the study recommends capacity building (through creation of indigenous based knowledge hubs) on indigenous knowledge based early warning system/indicators among the pastoral communities toensure generational transmission of the knowledge and promotion of culturally appropriate climate variability and change adaptation and mitigation strategies.
Description
A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Environmental Studies of Kenyatta University, November 2021
Keywords
Community Preparedness, Mitigation, Adaptation, Climate Variability, Change, Kajiado County, Kenya