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In the context of observed climate change and variability and their impact on livelihoods; This study intended to assess farmers’ perception and vulnerability to climate change and variability in Janamora district, northwestern Ethiopia was employed. With the objective of assessing the extent of climate variability and trend; assess farmers’ perception and vulnerability to climate change and variability and determine the farmers’ level of adaptive capacity, exposure, and sensitivity to climate change and variability. Primary data for the study was collected through questionnaire from 138 respondents selected through multi-stage sampling technique based on agro-ecology and secondary data was collected from meteorological stations. Mann-Kendall and Chi-square test were employed to test trend and climate change perception through XLSTAT 2016 and SPSS version 23 respectively. While LVI and LVI-IPCC methods were used to assess farmers’ vulnerability to climate change and variability using SPSS version 23 and Spreadsheet 2016. The results revealed significant increasing trend in annual average temperature in all stations except Debark and insignificant trend in annual rainfall as well as a higher rainfall variability. Similarly, 69.6 and 80.4% of the interviewed farmers were aware of an increase in temperature and a decrease in rainfall respectively. Moreover, χ2 test showed that a significant variation (statistically significant at P<0.05) in perception to temperature and rainfall between agro-ecology, gender, educational status and farming experience of respondents. The overall vulnerability result in the case of LVI was 0.425, 0.454 and 0.471 for Dega, Woyna Dega and Kolla agro-ecological zones respectively. Similar result was found using the LVI-IPCC approach which was 0.035, 0.041 and 0.049 for Dega, Woyna Dega and Kolla agro-ecological zones respectively. Both LVI and LVI-IPCC results revealed that Kolla was the most vulnerable and Dega was the least vulnerable to climate change and variability. The LVI-IPCC also implied that respondents of Kolla were the most exposed (0.471) and the most sensitive (0.557) to climate change and variability. Whereas households of Dega had the lowest adaptive capacity (0.388). The study suggested improving the literacy level and integrating rural development schemes to increase adaptive capacity.
Key Words: Perception, Vulnerability, Climate Change and Variability, Livelihood |
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