Lowland smallholders’ livelihood vulnerability to Climate change-induced hazards in Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Livelihood vulnerability to climate change-induced hazards is a serious problem for all agro-ecological contexts, notwithstanding being more severe for various groups of lowland smallholder farmers in Ethiopia. This study used cross-sectional survey data of 422 households from three sublowland agro-ecologies to assess differences in lowland smallholder farmers' vulnerability to climate change-induced hazards. Exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity indications were built based on the literature review. The vulnerability index of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the livelihood vulnerability index were calculated by giving different weights through principal component analysis (PCA) to the standardized indicators. The findings show that hot-to-warm sub-moist lowland agro-ecology is highly exposed, and sensitive and also has a lower ability for risk adaptation. This may be due to comparatively limited access to institutional infrastructure, usage of innovation, wealth status, diversification of sources of income, and social networks compared to other lowland agro-ecologies (p < 0.001). The policy implication of the study's findings is that the government and nongovernmental organizations must plan and implement sublowland agro ecology-specific adaptation strategies to reduce vulnerability to climate change-induced hazards by giving priority to the Hot-to-Warm Sub-Moist lowland Area.