Background: Assessing the magnitude of smallholder farmers’ livelihood vulnerability to drought is an initial step in identifying the causal factors and proposing interventions that mitigate the impacts of drought. This study aimed to assess smallholders’ livelihood vulnerability to the drought in the upper Awash sub-basin, Ethiopia. Household (HH) and climate data were used for indicators related to sensitivity, exposure, and adaptive capacity that define vulnerability to drought. The vulnerability of farmers’ livelihood to drought was compared among the studies agroecological zone (AEZ) and farm typologies. Results: The result illustrated a diverse magnitude of vulnerability index (VI) ranging from −1.956 to −4.253 for AEZ. The highest magnitude of VI was estimated for livelihood in the lowland AEZ, while the lowest magnitude of VI was estimated in midland AEZ. This could be accounted for by the fact that lowland farmers shown the highest exposure (0.432) and sensitivity (0.420) and the lowest adaptive capacity (0.288). A closer look at farmers’ livelihood typology, in each of the AEZ, showed substantial diversity of farmers’ livelihood vulnerability to drought, implying potential aggregations at AEZ. Accordingly, the vulnerability index for livestock and on-farm-income-based livelihood and marginal and off-farm-income-based livelihood typologies were higher than the intensive-irrigation-farming-based smallholders’ livelihood typology. Conclusions: Based on the result, we concluded that procedures for smallholders’ livelihood resilience-building efforts should better target AEZ to prioritize the focus region and farmers’ livelihood typology to tailor technologies to farms. Although the result emphasizes the importance of irrigation-based livelihood strategy, the overall enhancement of farmers adaptive capacity needs to focus on action areas such as reducing the sensitivity and exposure of the households, improving farmers usage of technologies, diversify farmers’ livelihood options, and, hence, long-term wealth accumulation to strengthen farmers’ adaptive capacity toward drought impacts.

The Ethiopian government has made efforts to rehabilitate degraded lands using a range of sustainable land management (SLM) initiatives. One of the key components was the use of improved structural soil and water conservation (SWC) technologies. However, the effectiveness of technology adoption varies greatly among households and abandoning previously accepted measures is a typical occurrence. Thus, this study sought to discover factors influencing smallholder farmers’ decisions to abandon already accepted SWC measures. The analysis was conducted based on data collected from 525 sample households surveyed in two districts in Central Ethiopia. An ordered cumulative logistic (POM) regression model was used to examine variables explaining households’ decision behavior. The study findings have revealed that sampled households were at different adoption stages, i.e., dis-adopters (22%), pilot-level adopters (14%) and adopters (64%). The results from the POM model also show that a range of variables influenced farmers’ dis-adoption decisions. Factors such as awareness about the risks of land degradation, access to training, incentives, land fragmentation, gender, full-time labor size, gentle slope plots, economic returns on investment and post-adoption follow-up were found to substantially influence smallholder farmers’ adoption discontinuance decisions. Thus, policymakers should consider these variables in designing strategies to overcome barriers to SLM practices.

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Hotels create unforeseen damages to the environment by depleting natural resources and driving out wastes. Studies have rarely been conducted to investigate the nexus between hotels and the environment in Ethiopia. This study aims to explore environmental practices among Addis Ababa hotels. The quantitative research design was applied to the study. The data were gathered through a self-administered questionnaire and analyzed through descriptive statistics. The totels' environmental practice indicators were examined under the themes of water-saving, energy-saving, green purchase, and waste management. Within these themes, the installation of energy-efficient bulbs, installation of a key card for light; using energy-efficient appliances; regular maintenances of water and electric facilities; the installing of dual toilet and other low flow water technologies; placing of dustbins; sorting and disposing of solid wastes, and buying of local products were implemented to a certain extent. The study implicates the requirement of intervention to make hotel operation environmentally sustainable.