Abstract
The failure to acknowledge and account for environmental externalities or spillovers in climate change adaptation policy, advocacy, and programming spaces exacerbate the risk of ecological degradation, and more so, the degradation of land. The use of unsuitable water sources for irrigation may increase salinisation risks. However, few if any policy assessments and research efforts have been directed at investigating how farmer perceptions mediate spillovers from the ubiquitous irrigation adaptation strategy. In this study, the cognitive failure and/or bias construct is examined and proposed as an analytical lens in research, policy, and learning and the convergence of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation discourses. A cross-sectional survey design and multistage stratified sampling were used to collect data from 69 households. To elicit the environmental impacts of irrigation practices, topsoil and subsoils from irrigated and non-irrigated sites were sampled and analysed using AAS (atomic absorption spectrophotometer). A generalised linear logistic weight estimation procedure was used to analyse the perception of risks while an analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyse changes in exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP). The findings from small-scale farmers in Machakos and Kakamega counties, Kenya, suggest multifaceted biases and failures about the existence and importance of externalities in adaptation planning discourses. Among other dimensions, a cognitive failure which encompasses fragmented approaches among institutions for use and management of resources, inadequate policy. and information support, as well as the poor integration of actors in adaptation planning accounts for adaptation failure. The failures in such human–environment system interactions have the potential to exacerbate the existing vulnerability of farmer production systems in the long run. The findings further suggest that in absence of risk message information dissemination, education level, farming experience, and information accumulation, as integral elements to human capital, do not seem to have a significant effect on behaviour concerning the mitigation of environmental spillovers. Implicitly, reversing the inherent adaptation failures calls for system approaches that enhance coordinated adaptation planning, prioritise the proactive mitigation of slow-onset disaster risks, and broadens decision support systems such as risk information dissemination integration, into the existing adaptation policy discourses and practice.
Highlights
Though climate change is used as justification for environmental and livelihood interventions [1], there is a risk of adaptation failure or an inability of adaptation action to meet set objectives and/orClimate 2020, 8, 3; doi:10.3390/cli8010003 www.mdpi.com/journal/climateClimate 2020, 8, 3 generate hybrid risks, such as environmental degradation [2,3]
Though the mean pH is within the recommended range for most crops, the mean value for Machakos tended towards alkaline with potential to increase salinisation risks
In absence of a transformative and system approach, failure to identify and internalise the individual and cumulative impacts of the seemingly minor footprints could over time substantially increase land degradation risks and impose costs on the society at large
Summary
Though climate change is used as justification for environmental and livelihood interventions [1], there is a risk of adaptation failure or an inability of adaptation action to meet set objectives and/orClimate 2020, 8, 3; doi:10.3390/cli8010003 www.mdpi.com/journal/climateClimate 2020, 8, 3 generate hybrid risks, such as environmental degradation [2,3]. Comprehensive adaptation planning frameworks address policy and implementation process interlinkages or scales at local and national levels [3,9,10]. It encompasses the integration of sustainable development and disaster risk management lenses [11,12,13], policy engagement or framing [2,3,9,14], as well as changes in policies and institutional arrangements that mediate successful scaling up of CCA [1]. Focusing on implementation phase in adaptation planning is critical as statements of intent, allocated resources, and envisioned alternatives in the form of programs, legislation and rules on their own cannot guarantee effective solutions to collective adaptation needs [17,18]
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