Trends, impacts, and local responses to drought stress in Diamare Division, Northern Cameroon

Abstract

Drought is one of the climatic events that threaten water availability, food security, and local livelihoods in semi-arid areas. Whilst studies have evolved on the impacts of climate change on humanity, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, limited scholarly insight exists on the impacts of specific climatic stressors and shocks and how residents respond to such. This study contributes to climate change policy planning debates by analysing the trends, impacts and local responses to drought drawing on household questionnaires, participatory field observations, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions. The CUSUM and Mann-Kendall tests were used to analyse weather data (rainfall and temperature) to establish their trends. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was used to determine drought occurrences and intensities. The results showed significant variation: rise and decline in temperature and rainfall over the years. The SPI (range from -0.01 to -2.8) indicated extreme, severe, moderate, and mild drought (mild (73%) being the notorious) event that instigated crop failure, drying of water sources, loss of pasture, food shortages, high prices of foodstuffs, malnutrition, water scarcity, and health problems and loss of livestock. Households responded by utilizing crop residues and tree branches as fodder for livestock, reducing the number of times households eat, and changing crop varieties and planting dates. This study argues that considering the geographical variation of climatic shocks and stressors, a focus on the specific climatic event may offer the possibility for an in-depth understanding of its impacts on local residents, and useful for engendering climate planning policy intervention in Sub-Saharan Africa.