The Vulnerability of Women to Climate Change in terms of Exposure, Sensitivity and Adaptive Capacity: the case study of North Gondar Zone

Abstract

This research is done to evaluate the vulnerability of women to climate change in some selected districts of North Gondar Zone. The IPCC vulnerability measures index were used to analyze the vulnerability level. As a result exposure index, adaptive capacity and sensitivity index with eight major component and thirty five sub-components were used to collect data from respondents. 346 randomly selected respondents were used to collect data from the three purposively selected agroecology zone districts. The result shows that there is high exposure level in Debark district (0.89) followed by Dembia (0.86) while the least is scored in West Belesa district (0.86). Regarding the adaptive capacity of districts Debark district scored the best result (0.3) and West Belesa district (0.2) is the least. Similarly the sensitivity level becomes higher for West Belesa (0.89) which shows the least coping mechanism by women and the highest result by Debark District (0.85). The vulnerability of the district is therefore compute by taking the weight of the three contributing factors together and calculated using IPPC formula. As a result of this the vulnerability level of the districts becomes 0.52 which lays on vulnerability categories according to IPPC vulnerability measures. The vulnerability measures of each district were also done using the same formula. Therefore the result shows that Debark District (0.52), Dembia District (0.5) and the highest score is West Belesa (0.59). The researcher conclude that women in the study area are highly vulnerable to climate change and among the contributing factors the value of Exposure and sensitivity indices are higher and adaptive capacity to climate change is the practice in the study districts.