Climate Change Adaptation In Communities Research Articles

The interplay of Christianity and Ndau African traditional religion in shaping climate change adaptation in Zimbabwe: An Afrocentric analysis

AbstractThis paper utilizes Afrocentric tenets to explore how the Ndau people's shift from African traditional religion to Christianity affects their understanding and experience of climate change. Set against recent climate‐induced disasters in Chimanimani, the study employs Afrocentric qualitative methods, including talking cycles and philosophical sagacity interviews, to gather data from household heads and village leaders. Findings indicate that traditional religious practices significantly influenced rainfall patterns and disease control, impacting agriculture. The transition to Christianity has markedly altered the community's climate change adaptation strategies. Despite this shift, Christianity has provided benefits, aiding communities in coping with droughts, death, property destruction, livelihood disruption, and climate change‐induced diseases. This study contributes to Sustainable Development Goal 13, emphasizing the importance of understanding society's social rubric to combat climate change. By employing Afrocentric lenses to analyze the Ndau people's historical and cultural narratives, it offers a unique perspective on religious evolution and climate adaptation.

Application of Community Climate Change Adaptation Assessment Tools for Climate Adaptation Planning in Yala Wetlands Complex, Lake Victoria Basin, Kenya

Application of Community Climate Change Adaptation Assessment Tools for Climate Adaptation Planning in Yala Wetlands Complex, Lake Victoria Basin, Kenya

Traditional knowledge and institutions for sustainable climate change adaptation in Ethiopia

Local values, institutions and knowledge have enabled people to understand the happenings and changes in their environment. Local perceptions and knowledge provide a crucial foundation for community-based climate change adaptation measures and natural resource conservation. This paper is specifically focused on the assessment of the opportunities and challenges of traditional knowledge and institutions for community's sustainable climate change adaptation in Ethiopia. We used knowledge products form journal articles, policy documents, working papers, policy briefs, and other gray literature. In addition, two case studies were conducted in central and eastern Ethiopia by interviewing 251 randomly selected households. This helped to determine the state-of-the art for knowledge co-products for community's sustainable climate change adaptation and natural resource management. Regardless of the challenges from global change, cultural erosion and transformation, traditional knowledge still serve as the bases for weather forecasting, agricultural and natural resource management thereby sustain community's livelihoods and landscape resilience against the impacts of climate change and variability. Traditional knowledge and institutions in Ethiopia have maintained landscapes for millennia: Konso cultural landscapes and Gedeo Agroforestry systems are some to mention. The knowledge systems have also contributed for the large diversity of crops and livestock breeds in Ethiopia which play roles in community's climate change adaptation. From this assessment, it can be concluded that both scientific and traditional knowledge have their own gaps and what will be better is the integration of the two to give an additive impact that can foster sustainable development and build livelihood and landscape resilience in times of climate change.

Recommendations for Early Phases of Engaging Communities in Climate Change Adaptation

Communities across the globe have begun planning for and adapting to climate change. Cooperative Extension Service professionals are in a unique position to use the resources available to them to facilitate climate change adaptation in their communities. Adaptation planning is a local activity that must be context specific. However, general recommendations can be made to help facilitate the planning process. In this study, we conducted a systematic review of research about climate change adaptation in communities to explore ideas that contribute to successful adaptation-planning communication. We identified and reviewed 50 peer-reviewed articles that described various outreach efforts to engage communities in planning for adaptation across a range of contexts and settings. Five themes emerged addressing how to facilitate early stages of the climate change adaptation process: establishing positive initial engagement, incorporating participatory methods, using tools to facilitate understanding, addressing trust and uncertainty, and maximizing limited time. Based on the review and emergent themes, we offer practical recommendations for educators and Cooperative Extension Service professionals as they engage communities in climate change adaptation.

Examining Collaborative Processes for Climate Change Adaptation in New Brunswick, Canada.

Collaboration is a proposed strategy to address super wicked environmental problems, such as climate change. Yet, understanding how it works for climate change adaptation is nascent. This research aims to advance the understanding of this by a cross-case analysis of three cases in New Brunswick, Canada. We sought to illuminate the inner workings of multiparty collaboration in the context of community climate change adaptation; identify important qualities of the process and outcomes from it, and probe their relationships; and, explore how they come about in practice. A questionnaire was sent to individuals involved in cases and key informant interviews were conducted. Results reveal case-specific variations, but more importantly, common qualities and outcomes across the cases. They offer key insight into elements which may be important in collaborative settings. These are informative for influencing the uptake of collaborative strategies in climate change adaptation and offer the opportunity to better understand their functional effectiveness.

Climate change vulnerability assessment using a GIS modelling approach in ASAL ecosystem: a case study of Upper Ewaso Nyiro basin, Kenya

Investments in climate change adaptation for communities and water resources are increasingly benefiting from vulnerability mapping. Such mapping can reveal hotspot areas from climate-related threats and can provide useful information needed for adaptation and resilience building efforts. The arid and semi-arid lands of Kenya are volatile to climate change and pastoralists in this region are highly dependent on climate-sensitive natural resources to sustain their livelihoods, hence any change in climate affects them negatively. This study sought to assess climate vulnerability in upper Ewaso Nyiro basin area using the IPCC approach which defines vulnerability in three components: exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Twelve indicators were selected based on its proximity to the component being measured and normalization of the indicators was done to ensure consistency of scale ranging from 0 to 100, illustrating a linear relationship to vulnerability 100 being most vulnerable. The study relied on averaging approach of indicators to derive component and vulnerability scores through the process of spatial integration. Results observed high vulnerability in areas exhibiting similar trend in high exposure and lack of adaptive capacity as well as high sensitivity. The highest vulnerability was observed in Korr/Ngurunit ward in Marsabit County where approximately 45.45% of the population was noted to be highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, while 54.55% of the population was noted to be moderately vulnerable. This study recommends county government and national government to build targeted resilience efforts within the highly vulnerable communities since this would improve community livelihoods.

Stakeholder engagement with environmental decision support systems: The perspective of end users

Environmental decision support systems (EDSS) are designed to assist natural resource managers and stakeholders to assess problems and select options for change. EDSS that combine community engagement in developing future scenarios with computer‐based land use planning and modelling tools are widely used internationally. However, these EDSS are often not used after the research and development phase. To best understand why the EDSS are not being used in the long term, the end users of the EDSS should be consulted—a perspective that is lacking in the literature. The research reported here presents the perspectives of stakeholders involved in a community climate change adaptation project in western Canada. Evidence from the community suggests that this project was successful in instigating change. However, the EDSS was not used after the project's end. Our findings indicate that, from the end users’ perspective, the project could have had much greater and sustained success had there been ongoing engagement and communication with them, particularly in the form of continued support for the use of EDSS after the development project.