Analysis of smallholders’ livelihood vulnerability to drought across agroecology and farm typology in the Upper Awash Sub-Basin, Ethiopia
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 t...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | Inglés |
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MDPI
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/114834 |
| _version_ | 1855523290709229568 |
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| author | Maru, H. Haileslassie, Amare Zeleke, T. Esayas, B. |
| author_browse | Esayas, B. Haileslassie, Amare Maru, H. Zeleke, T. |
| author_facet | Maru, H. Haileslassie, Amare Zeleke, T. Esayas, B. |
| author_sort | Maru, H. |
| collection | Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace) |
| description | 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. |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | CGSpace114834 |
| institution | CGIAR Consortium |
| language | Inglés |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publishDateRange | 2021 |
| publishDateSort | 2021 |
| publisher | MDPI |
| publisherStr | MDPI |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | CGSpace1148342024-06-26T10:09:17Z Analysis of smallholders’ livelihood vulnerability to drought across agroecology and farm typology in the Upper Awash Sub-Basin, Ethiopia Maru, H. Haileslassie, Amare Zeleke, T. Esayas, B. drought smallholders farmers livelihoods vulnerability resilience agroecological zones farm typology households farm income livestock 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. 2021-08-31 2021-08-31T21:32:23Z 2021-08-31T21:32:23Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/114834 en Open Access MDPI Maru, H.; Haileslassie, Amare; Zeleke, T.; Esayas, B. 2021. Analysis of smallholders’ livelihood vulnerability to drought across agroecology and farm typology in the Upper Awash Sub-Basin, Ethiopia. Sustainability, 13(17):9764. (Special issue: New Challenges for the Sustainability and Competitiveness of Agricultural Systems: Bioeconomy Strategies Focused on Soil Management, Use of Natural Resources and Climate Change Mitigation) [doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/su13179764] |
| spellingShingle | drought smallholders farmers livelihoods vulnerability resilience agroecological zones farm typology households farm income livestock Maru, H. Haileslassie, Amare Zeleke, T. Esayas, B. Analysis of smallholders’ livelihood vulnerability to drought across agroecology and farm typology in the Upper Awash Sub-Basin, Ethiopia |
| title | Analysis of smallholders’ livelihood vulnerability to drought across agroecology and farm typology in the Upper Awash Sub-Basin, Ethiopia |
| title_full | Analysis of smallholders’ livelihood vulnerability to drought across agroecology and farm typology in the Upper Awash Sub-Basin, Ethiopia |
| title_fullStr | Analysis of smallholders’ livelihood vulnerability to drought across agroecology and farm typology in the Upper Awash Sub-Basin, Ethiopia |
| title_full_unstemmed | Analysis of smallholders’ livelihood vulnerability to drought across agroecology and farm typology in the Upper Awash Sub-Basin, Ethiopia |
| title_short | Analysis of smallholders’ livelihood vulnerability to drought across agroecology and farm typology in the Upper Awash Sub-Basin, Ethiopia |
| title_sort | analysis of smallholders livelihood vulnerability to drought across agroecology and farm typology in the upper awash sub basin ethiopia |
| topic | drought smallholders farmers livelihoods vulnerability resilience agroecological zones farm typology households farm income livestock |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/114834 |
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