Vulnerability Status of Rural Households to Climate Change and Extreme Events: A Comparative Study from three Agro-climatic Zones in Janamora District of Ethiopia.

Abstract

Rural communities, who are dominantly dependent upon natural resources, have always been adjusting their livelihood against the vagaries of climate. With the global climate change, these communities have been placed in greater vulnerability as the weather and extreme events have become more unpredictable. In order to formulate suitable policy measures to address their livelihood, assessment of local level vulnerability is very important. This paper analyzes the micro-level vulnerability of rural community in the three agro-climatic zones of Janamora district utilizing the data collected from 352 households from the three agro-climatic zones. The analysis is based on indices constructed from carefully selected indicators for exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. The indicators are weighted using Principal Component Analysis. The study elucidated high to low moderate vulnerability status of farming households of lowland community. The computed LVI of Kolla agro-ecology/Lowland, Woinadega agro-ecology/Midland and Dega agro-ecology/Highland are 0.696, 0.567, and 0.638. Furthermore, results suggest that the Kolla/lowland agro-ecology is more vulnerable in terms of natural assets (0.991) followed by climate variability (0.914). Policy measures and development efforts should be focused towards improving the adaptive capacity of the rural households, while keeping the post-disaster emergency relief measures in place for localities with higher exposure to climate extremes. The poorest households should be the primary target of any interventions.