| dc.description.abstract | Sustaining climate change resilience and achieving poverty eradication goals in Kenya, as a climate policy, is expected to be affected by the continued atmospheric warming. Future impacts on the human population as a result of climate change will depend on policy choices and development that is climate informed.
Using historical climate data from gridded datasets and projections from a downscaled climate model as well as environmental and socio-economic data, this study assessed past and future climate trends and mapped hotspots of climate change vulnerability in Kenya. The study used a modified framework for climate change vulnerability assessments from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Because climate change threatens poverty eradication, a secondary analysis used outputs from the climate model to explore future poverty scenarios under climate change using a regression-based model.
Significant decreasing trends in rainfall were found in most of the eastern and coastal areas of the country. High rainfall variability was observed in most arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs). A higher increase in mean annual temperatures was observed in the cooler highlands of the central and western Kenya and lower in hotter areas in the ASALs. The decreasing trends in rainfall coupled with high variability and increases in mean temperatures were projected to continue in the future. Hotspots of high vulnerability were mostly located in the arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) of the country. This vulnerability was mainly driven by climate stresses that were observed in these areas including high temperatures, high rainfall variability and decreasing rainfall and where access to clean water, good housing, health services, and market services was poor. Additionally, these areas had high poverty rates and occupied about 68% of the country with an estimated population of 8 million people in 2016.
Projections of vulnerability in the future showed high vulnerability could increase by between 45% and 47% in the two climate change scenarios; RCP 4.5 and 8.5 respectively, with an additional 5 million to 9 million people by 2050 extremely vulnerable. The study also found significant associations between poverty and long term annual mean rainfall, long term annual mean temperatures, soil organic carbon, adult literacy and distance to markets. Under the pessimistic scenario (RCP 8.5), the number of people living in poverty was projected to increase from 19 million people in 2016 to 56 million people by 2050.
This study recommends the adoption of the vulnerability maps for identification of resilience building priorities by the national and county governments while further research is needed,
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especially in evaluating outputs from using data from different climate models for projections of vulnerability and poverty. Further field validations are also required using local case studies that take into account existing community adaptation measures. | en_US |
