COMMUNITY ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION STRATEGIES TO CLIMATE CHANGE IN SEMI-ARID AREAS OF DODOMA REGION, TANZANIA

Abstract

Climate change is one of the global environmental problems that affect human livelihoods. Extreme events such as rainfall and temperature changes have led to severe economic and livelihood impacts hence prompting both international and national efforts to deal with climate change. However, such efforts face serious financial, technical, political and human capacity challenges. This underscores the need for examining local community adaptation and mitigation strategies as one of the attempts towards using local solutions in addressing the problem of climate change and hence the quest of this study. In particular, the study focused on assessing the impacts of climate change on livelihoods; determining adaptation and mitigation strategies used in addressing impacts of climate change; examining the status of mainstreaming issues into government policies; and examining the role and contribution of actors in facilitating local community adaptation and mitigation practices. The study used a household survey of 398 randomly sampled household respondents, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, analysis of meteorological data and documentary review. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS (ver. 16) and Microsoft Excel 2007 programs using descriptive statistics, multiple responses, principal component analysis, t-test of independence, chi-square test of independence, and time series analysis as statistical techniques. Content analysis was used to analyse qualitative data from focus group discussions and reviewed documents. The analysis of meteorological data of 30 years indicated an increasing trend in temperature and wind speed and declining mean annual rainfall trend. Some of the major climate change impacts on livelihoods revealed by the study were reduced agricultural productivity, alteration of the planting season, water shortage and reduced livestock pasture. In response, various agricultural practices, income diversification, water management techniques, communal pooling, migration, tree planting and forest conservation were used as local community adaptations and mitigation strategies. However, their implementations were hindered by factors such as lack of resources, weak institutional support and high cost of adaptation and mitigation technologies. The study also revealed that efforts to mainstream climate change initiatives are still at the infancy stage. Furthermore, most actors involved in facilitating community initiatives lack institutional objectives and resources for guiding the process of climate change management. The study concluded that climate change has severe effects on the key livelihood sources and activities in the study area. Despite lack of support and coordination from public and private actors and an absence of concrete objectives on climate change amongst most actors, the local communities in the area were using various initiatives do deal with climate change. This study recommends the strengthening of the collection and dissemination of weather forecast information to help in planning for effective adaptation and mitigation practices; development of clear objective(s) to guide in facilitating local communities‟ adaptation and mitigation efforts; mainstreaming climate change issues to government levels and sectors; and strengthening the agricultural support system by recruiting adequate number of extension officers.