Assessing significance of community documented climate impacts and adaptation preferences and options in the lake victoria region, Tanzania
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Date
2017-02-13
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Ethiopian Journal of Environmental Studies & Management
Abstract
The study was conducted in Ukerewe Island in the Lake Victoria, Tanzania in order to
ascertain the communities’ awareness on climate change impacts and adaptation/coping
strategies. The methodology involved randomly selected 420 people mostly farmers and
fishermen who were interviewed and involved in focus groups. It was observed that
communities were aware of the changes in climatic parameters consequently impacting
their livelihood. The most significant impacts were scarcity of water and poor crop
production which received 100% support of the respondents. Other impacts included the
change of water quality of the Lake Victoria (94.5%) and loss of biodiversity (35.7%). On
the non-climatic factors, the major concern was on population growth (98.3%), loss of soil
fertility (96%) and deforestation (84.8%). Of the suggested adaption options, provision of
alternative food crops and fertility improvement to increase production were highly
supported with highest total score of 48 on an arbitrary total assessment scale of
maximum of 50. This was also observed on fish farming activities. The observations
highlighted gender-based labour division imbalance where women and children were
shown to shoulder the burden. It can be concluded that communities in the Lake Victoria
region are affected by multiple impacts related to climate and also those not related to
climate. Under various impacts communities set their own coping and adaptation
strategies based on importance to livelihood. However, there is a need for proper
guidance on how adaptation strategies are being executed.
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Keywords
Climate change, Adaptation strategies, Livelihood, Lake Victoria communities