COMMUNITY’S PERCEPTION AND ADAPTATION STRATEGIES TO CLIMATE CHANGE AT JANNAMORA DISTRICTS, NORTH EAST ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Climate change is the major environmental challenges which have wide range of economic, social and environmental impacts. In adaption of these impacts, it is important to assess and change the perception of local community to climate change and adaptation response. So, the overall objective of this study was to assess the community perception and adaptive response to climate change at Jannamora District, North East Ethiopia. The result of the study shown that majority of the respondents perceived there were the existence of climate change. However, more than half of respondent response link the cause of climate change with the act of God and natural process of climate who had limited knowledge about the cause of climate change. Shortage of rainfall, recurrent drought and unexpected heavy rainfall, increasing temperature, flood and poor crop production yield are impacts of climate change. Access to safety net, access to extension services, access to credit, migrate to other place, use of small scale irrigation, rain water harvesting, use of drought tolerant crops, use of mixed cropping, and soil and water conservation practices are adaptation strategies. However, the local community had problem for effective adaptation of impacts which include lack of information on climate change and adaptation measures, lack of capital, poor infrastructure and land degradation. Thus, efforts of all stakeholders should focus on improving the community’s knowledge to climate change through training, conference and extension services. Moreover, diversifying the livelihoods of the farmers, expansion of irrigational agriculture, facilitating the availability of credit and participating the local community in environmental conservation program will be improved