Livelihood resilience in the face of recurring floods: an empirical evidence from Northwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: The recent trend of increasing incidents of floods in Ethiopia is disrupting the livelihoods of a significant proportion of the country's population. This study assesses the factors that shape the resilience and the vulnerability of rural households in the face of recurring floods by taking the case of Dembia district of Northwest Ethiopia as one of the flood-prone areas in the country. Results: The data for the study were collected through a survey of 284 households, two focus group discussions, and 12 key informant interviews. Principal Component Analysis and simple linear regression were used for the analysis. The former served both for data reduction and identification of the dominant factors that explain resilience to recurring flood hazards while the latter was used to check the relationship between resilience and vulnerability. Findings indicate that access and use of livelihood resources such as size of farmlands, availability of farm oxen, credit as well as ability to draw help from social networks were found to be the most important factors that determine the resilience of households to floods. Similarly, the coping strategies employed by households were found to be constrained mainly by the scale and impact of the recent floods and lack or shortage of basic infrastructural and social facilities. Conclusions: The results confirmed that most of the traditional coping strategies employed by households failed to effectively help households offset the impacts of flooding. Given the livelihood context of smallholder farming system in the studied area, context specific institutional interventions such as the integrated use of both safety nets and cargo nets may help communities to overcome livelihood predicaments associated with the recurrent flood disasters. This implies that policy should focus more on addressing the factors that expose people to flood disasters and shape their resilience, rather than focusing on short-term emergency responses which seems to be the norm in much of the flood affected areas in the country.

Climate Change and Livelihood Vulnerability in Mixed Crop–Livestock Areas: The Case of Province Punjab, Pakistan

“…For example, Ahmad and Ma [130] empirically found that small farms were ignored during restoration of livelihoods by agricultural assistance (seeds and fertilizers) after super flood disasters in Pakistan in 2010, and as a result, they closed down their farms and changed their occupations in the very next season of farming. Therefore, it is very important to sustain those affected after they lose their shelter, crops, and livelihood sources to natural hazards [131,132], in order to reduce their livelihood vulnerability.…”

Climate Resilience Index as a tool to explore households’ resilience to climate change-induced shocks in Dinki watershed, central highlands of Ethiopia Households’ resilience to climate change impacts

“…and more likely to bounce back quickly against shock impacts. In 262 agreement with this finding, studies state that landlessness and small land holding are 263 determinant factors causing land degradation and resilience erosion (25). Besides, a study 264 in central Ethiopia discloses that natural resource management practices, which in turn 265 determined by farm size, among others, are strategies for rural communities to enhance 266 their resilience to shock (26).…”

“…Where Ia is the standardized value for the indicator a, Sr is the observed (average) value of Where Mr is one of the ten major components for agro-ecology r, Iai is the indicator indexed 203 by i, that make up each major component, N is the number of indicator in each major 204 component. After values for each of the ten major components for each agro-ecology were 205 calculated, the CRI was obtained from the weighted average of the ten components as: transformative capacities [6,10,5,25] absorptive capacity is the ability of a socio-ecological 217 system to prepare for, mitigate with or prevent negative impacts through coping strategies 218 in order to preserve and restore basic structures and functions (24). The index was 219 computed based on the perceived ability of households to climate change-induced shocks, 220 access to early warning system, preparedness, stability and social capital like sharing of 221 resources, technology and membership to community-based organizations (13).…”

“…Adaptive capacity is the ability of a system to adjust impacts to moderate potential damage, 223 to take advantage of opportunity, so that it continues functioning without significant change Ethiopia (25). Key determinants of resilience and major features of each resilience category 253 are presented in Table 2 below.…”

“…Furthermore, households' resilience capacity was graphically presented in four quadrant 402 charts following the Andersen and Cardona(36) and Weldegebriel and Amphune(25). The 403 graph was established based on households' income per capita and mean LRI values drawn on x and y-axes, respectively.…”