Climate Change Vulnerability Hotspots In The Eastern African

Abstract

Climate change has become the greatest and most common challenge to socioeconomic development for Eastern Africa. Generating the necessary evidence to stimulate policy actions and implementing interventions for averting climate-related risks is a critical step to building resilient societies. The aim of this study was to generate climate vulnerability maps for the identification of hotspots in countries within the Intergovernmental Authority on Development and the East African Community. As per the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2001 framework, vulnerability to climate change was conceptualised as a function of exposure and sensitivity to a climate-related hazard and adaptive capacity of a population. Human exposure was established from historical trends of occurrence of climate-related hazards while population density and percentage of protected areas were used as proxies of human and ecological sensitivity, respectively. Adaptive capacity was established as a function of socioeconomic factors, technology and infrastructure. Data on five climate-related natural disasters (tropical cyclones, sea level rise, floods, droughts and landslides) were obtained from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) for the period 1980–2019. Mapping of the climate change events were then undertaken to obtain trends and patterns in line with the study objectives. From the results obtained, Uganda and South Sudan were found to be most vulnerable to climate change. In particular, the eastern part of Uganda, and northeastern part of South Sudan with a relatively high population recorded high incidence of climate-related hazards. In relation to climate change manifestations, the results showed Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia had the highest frequency of drought during the study period averaging 0.325 events per year. For in-country mapping, it was evident north-eastern Kenya, south-eastern Ethiopia and the western region of Somalia had the highest incidence of drought. In relation to floods, the results showed Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya and Tanzania reported at least one incident of flooding annually. Other countries except Eritrea, reported at least an incident of flooding in a decade. In-country mapping showed the following flood-prone locations: Kenya (low-lying regions of Tana River delta in Tana River County, Nyando plains in Kisumu County and the Budalangi areas of Busia County); Tanzania (low altitude areas adjacent to Lake Tanganyika in Morogoro, Mbeya, and Kilimanjaro); south-eastern part of Ethiopia; and the plain lands of Kassala, Khartoum, North Kordofan and White Nile regions in Sudan.