Effects of Human Settlements on the Conservation of Sondu River Basin, Kenya

Abdirizak A Nunow,Japhet Kipngeno,Paul A Omondi

doi:10.37284/eajenr.2.2.181

Abstract

Governments and environmental conservationists agree that wetland resources need to be utilized sustainably to ensure the continued presence of wetlands and their ecological goods and services. Ideally, wetlands should be integrated into the national and local land use plans to ensure sustainable use and management of the resources. However, this is not the case as far as Kenya is concerned. Instead, there is rampant exploitation of wetlands by individuals, organizations and even government agencies with no regard to environmental conservation. Therefore, this study was undertaken to investigate the impact of human activities on wetland conservation with a focus on the Sondu River Basin. The objective of the study was to establish the effects of human settlements on the conservation of the Sondu River Basin. The study was grounded on the integrated water resource management theory. This study adopted a concurrent triangulation research design which entailed a combination of both qualitative and quantitative data. The target population for the study was 164 respondents in which a sample of 144 respondents was selected using Slovin’s formula. The sample was randomly selected with the inclusion criterion being that the chosen respondents were homogeneously engaged in human activities that affected wetland conservation. Intensive data cleaning exercise was carried out including checking for outliers, missing data imputation and variable transformation. The collected data were analysed by use of descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages and summation and presented in the form of tables and charts. The results of the study will inform policy and practice in the management and conservation of the Sondu River wetland area. The study established that human activities such as farming, logging, construction, drilling, building and construction and settlements have immensely hampered conservation of Sondu wetland. Further, it was noted that it is indeed possible to gain vital information about the human activities responsible for the degradation of wetlands.

Highlights

The conservation of wetlands has become a critical issue in contemporary society because the human population is growing exponentially, putting pressure on existing natural resources
Wetlands are critical to the sufficiency of humans in the precinct of welfare activities of the communities living in the environment, which includes the water sanitation, flow regulations and management of critical water resource, forest covers for management of carbon blueprint and management of conservations and water management
The study sought to find out the influence of human settlements activities in Sondu River wetland Conservation; the majority of the respondents (68.0%) agreed that human settlements pose threat to Sondu River conservation, which could lead to ills like environmental degradation, whereas 12.0% disagreed with this but 20.0% had no opinion on the same

Summary

Introduction

The conservation of wetlands has become a critical issue in contemporary society because the human population is growing exponentially, putting pressure on existing natural resources. Rebelo et al (2010) outlined both global and regional initiatives that have been deployed to save wetlands from human activities Among these concerns and efforts were the Rio-de-Janeiro Conference (1992), the Kyoto Protocol of 1995 and the Copenhagen Climate Meeting of 2009, all of which underlined that global and regional climate changes are a threat to land resources on which human survival relies (Rebelo et al, 2010). The existence of wetlands is under threat due to alarming human infringement and it is estimated that more than 50% of the world’s inland wetlands have been lost. Much of this loss of wetlands worldwide is attributed to agricultural activities. It is estimated that the loss of 56-65% of existing wetlands in Europe and North America, 27% in Asia, 6% in South America and 2% in Africa is due to agricultural activities (Day et al, 2003)

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