Abstract:
The agricultural sector remains the main source of livelihoods for rural communities in
Ethiopia. However, the climate which has remained relatively static for years has now
become very dynamic and unpredictable and has brought worst effects on the agriculture
sector by affecting the two most important direct agricultural inputs, precipitation and
temperature. Therefore, this study investigated the trend of climate change, adaptation
strategies they used, and factors that influence the choice of their adaptation decisions over
koga watershed by sampling 140 farm households. Both primary and secondary data were
used for the study, and Mann Kendall test and Sen’s Slope estimator were used to analyzed
the trend & magnitude of climate change while descriptive statistics and multinomial logit
model were employed to analyze adaptation strategies, they used and determinant factors that
influence the choice of adaptation strategies respectively. The result indicated nonsignificantly increasing trend in annual and summer rainfall with decadal increment of
24.4mm and 40.0mm respectively. Whereas maximum and mean temperature for the last 30
years (1987-2016) shows statistically significant increasing trend with recorded increment
value of 1.5oc and 1.2oc respectively. The local farmers perception results agreed with the
climate data analysis. They used crop variety, crop diversification & chemicals, soil and
water conservation, tree planting and supportive irrigation to adapt the climate change &
variability effects in the watershed. Farmers’ capacity to choose effective adaptation options
in the study area significantly influenced by age, land holding, farming experience, livestock
ownership, education, soil fertility, market distance, availability of capital, access to
extension and farmer to farmer extension service. Improved technologies and short duration
high yielding crops which are economically efficient, environmentally sound or suitable and
easily accessible should be developed through research and efforts should be made to make
the seed available to farmers. In general, interventions that enhance income, access to credit,
access to farm inputs, extension services, access to market and infrastructure development
should be an integral part of climate change adaptation policies and strategies.
Keywords: climate change, adaptation strategies, Mann Kendall test and Sen’s Slope
estimator and Multinomial logit model.