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It is widely acknowledged that, in addition to global and regional efforts to cope with climate change by means of mitigation measures, adaptation initiatives can and perhaps should play a key role in enabling communities from across Africa to better handle the problems related to it. Due to the fact that experiences in climate change adaptation in Africa are poorly documented, this book provides...
Climate change is a matter of global concern and specific sectors of society such as universities need to engage and be active in the search for regional and local solutions for what is a global problem. Despite the fact that many universities all around the world are undertaking remarkable efforts in tackling the challenges posed by climate change, few of such works are widely documented and disseminated...
A unique feature of this book is its strong practice-oriented nature: it contains a wide range of papers dealing with the social, economic and political aspects of climate change, exemplifying the diversity of approaches to climate change management taking place all over the world, in a way never seen before. In addition, the book describes a number of projects and other initiatives happening in Africa,...
Although the development and implementation of a global greenhouse gas reduction regime has dominated policy debates even before the advent of the Kyoto Protocol (and remains a critical element of effective mitigation), communities in developing countries do not have direct control of critical sources of emissions or are not fully aware of the scale at which the potentially catastrophic impacts of...
In Africa as well as in other developing countries, small communities are often the most severely impacted, yet often the least equipped to cope with the effects of climate variability and climate change. Even though the question of what exactly constitutes a successful adaptation to climate change is still unanswered and calls for further research, there is some evidence that many rural and indigenous...
Tanzania is one of the world’s leading nations in terms of wildlife conservation, with rich and diverse wildlife resources. Game controlled areas in Tanzania are used for wildlife conservation and most of them were set aside when human populations were low and global climate was stable. Under the climate change scenario realised for Tanzania for the next few decades, a 10% increase in annual inflow...
Growing scientific evidence suggests that climate change will accelerate weather extremes and increase human vulnerability to disasters. Exposure of agro-pastoralists to erratic rainfall and cyclical droughts leads to frequent crop failures and livestock losses, with additional shocks from economic perturbations and erosion of household assets depriving this vulnerable group of “insurance” against...
The increasing changes in the frequency, intensity and persistence of rainfall and temperature extremes are key determinants of food security vulnerability in Kenya. Shorter growing seasons and prolonged intra-seasonal dry spells often trigger much larger and more frequent harvest collapses than subsistence households can cope with, leading to declining crop production and increased food insecurity...
Due to climate change, northern Kenya is experiencing intense droughts at shorter intervals with intermittent high precipitation and flooding. This has a major impact on livelihoods of the pastoral community, whose ways of life revolve around the availability of pasture and water for their livestock. Our study set out to determine the Samburu people’s perception of climate change and how they cope...
Most dryland ecosystems are degraded and are currently far from saturated with carbon. This indicates their potential to sequester a significant amount of carbon through sequestration measures. In this study, we: (1) investigated changes in ecosystem carbon stocks following establishment of exclosure on communal grazing lands, and (2) identified easily measurable biophysical and management-related...
Coastal environments worldwide are going to be affected by climate change impacts in the future. These environments are densely populated especially in Africa and thus such impacts as rising sea level, increase in extreme storms and natural hazards, will have a bearing on local, regional and national levels. This research looks at environmental change, both past and current, on the east coast of Zanzibar,...
Decentralisation refers to ‘any act by which a central government cedes rights of decision-making over resources to actors and institutions at lower levels in a politico-administrative and territorial hierarchy’. Kenya’s history of a highly centralised forest governance regime has recently seen a shift in policy and legislation authorising decentralisation in the sector. But what is it that gets decentralised...
The purpose of this study was to assess farmers’ awareness, perceptions and coping options to deal with climate change shocks in semi-arid Kenya. Household heads who have been farming in the study areas for the last 15–20 years were identified by village leaders. By random selection, 100 households (in Gachoka division–Mbeere district) and 69 households (in Lare division–Nakuru district) were interviewed...
The purpose of this paper is to develop a new concept and approach for extracting knowledge from satellite images for near real-time drought monitoring in areas experiencing food insecurity in order to mitigate climate change. The near real-time data downloaded from the Atlantic Bird satellite was used to produce the drought spatial distribution in the assessed areas. During the analysis, cloud-contaminated...
Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) is currently given high priority as one of the means to mitigate the impacts of climate change. The purpose of this study is to examine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that are related to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation as a climate change mitigation strategy. REDD can contribute to...
The paper aims to map Kenya’s national development planning framework, investigate any environmental (including climate change) mainstreaming (EM) strategies employed, and identify the prospects and challenges for EM furtherance. The country’s heavy reliance on environment and natural resources for socio-economic development makes it particularly vulnerable to climate change. Effective EM will thus...
This chapter evaluates methods to estimate terrestrial ecosystem carbon assimilation and to monitor it over time at both local and national scales. This study presents simulated models that rely on vegetation indices and cover from Landsat 7 ETM sensors and vegetation stress scalars of temperature and moisture generated from the Thornthwaite water balance model. Temperature and moisture are the main...
The impacts of climate change on agriculture in Africa are significant and call for concrete measures that allow a better understanding of these problems, as well as the identification of the means to address them. One of the means to tackle them is by using analogue locations, i.e. locations that have the climatic characteristics today that are expected tomorrow. This paper introduces the project...
This chapter describes UNITAR Climate Change Programme and outlines the initiatives it has been undertaken to foster the cause of climate change adaptation in Africa.
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