Publication: Assessment of Ecological Vulnerability to Climate Variability on Coastal Fishing Communities: A Study of Ungwana Bay and Lower Tana Estuary, Kenya
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2018-09-01
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Funder
National Research Fund
Publisher
Elsevier
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Abstract
Fisheries resources are important in supporting the livelihood of many coastal communities
especially in the developing tropical countries. Fisheries resources however, continue to face
unprecedented pressure from the impacts of climate change, and this presents both ecological
and socio-economic challenges to the dependent communities. This paper assessed the ecological
vulnerability to climate variability of artisanal fishing communities in Ungwana Bay and the
Lower Tana Delta in Kenya, using selected fin fish species. A combination of approaches were
adopted and used to identify and determine exposure, sensitivity, and adaptation indicators.
These included a critical review of existing literature, socio-economic survey, and computation
of temperature and rainfall variation using long term data from 1983 to 2015. The method of
Equal Weights (EW) was applied to all indicators after normalization. The data was normalized
in a scale of 0–1, where 0 indicated low vulnerability level and 1 high vulnerability. By using
composite index, the selected Ngomeni and Ozi fishing communities within the larger Ungwana
Bay and Lower Tana Delta indicated high levels of vulnerability of 0.9 and 0.8 respectively. Due
to high vulnerability level and poor adaptation capacity by the local fishing communities in the
selected study sites, we recommend government and non-governmental agencies to reinforce
community based organizations (CBOs) activities on ecological conservation and social network
creation to promote short and long term adaptation measures.
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Keywords
Ecological vulnerability, Climate variability, Coastal fishing communities, Ungwana Bay, Lower Tana Estuary, Adaptation measures