article · Scientific Reports
Pastoral and agro-pastoral livelihoods in the arid Borana zone face severe climatic vulnerability, marked by extreme events like droughts and erratic rainfall. Climatic shocks heavily impair community resilience, leading to devastating impacts such as livestock mortality affecting 97 percent of respondents, severe food shortages affecting 91 percent, reduced income, and shortages of animal feed and water. Pastoralists face particular constraints in adaptation due to limited livelihood options, sparse social safety networks, knowledge barriers, and poor water availability. Existing community coping mechanisms include destocking livestock during extreme droughts, preserving hay and crop residues, and drawing on social capital. Current external interventions often fall short due to reactive rather than proactive implementation during emergencies. Reducing vulnerability requires tailored local interventions, including early warning systems, secure market channels, pasture and water infrastructure, and support for diversified income sources.
Pastoral communities in arid regions depend directly on livestock and natural resources for survival, making them acutely sensitive to climatic disruption. Identifying specific vulnerabilities, such as pervasive livestock mortality and food deficits, enables regional governments, humanitarian agencies, and development organisations to design proactive safety nets, early warning tools, and resource management frameworks rather than relying solely on post-disaster relief.
The abstract highlights needs that could guide commercial and public interventions, such as early warning communication systems, feed storage solutions, and structured livestock market channels. Relevant users include rural development agencies, agricultural cooperatives, and technology providers. As the abstract focuses on survey and interview data assessing existing vulnerability, these intervention concepts remain at the stage of early-stage problem identification rather than tested products or services.
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In recent decades, the global climate has changed mainly due to human-induced causes and realizing their manifestations in the forms of extreme events such as droughts, floods, heat stress, and variability in rainfall. Arid and semi-arid ecosystems are sensitive to changes in climate variability, including the Borana zone. This study was therefore initiated to assess how vulnerable pastoral and agro-pastoral livelihoods are to climate change, as well as to estimate the effects, and pinpoint potential response measures that could be implemented in the study area. Data were gathered by surveys, focused group and expert group discussions. The quantitative data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics, while the qualitative data was analyzed using thematically organized content analysis. The findings indicate that there is high degree of climatic risk to the livelihoods of both pastoralists and agro-pastoralists (- 0.37). The ability of pastoralists to adapt in comparison to agro-pastoralists is largely determined by numbers of factors, including inadequate livelihood strategies, poor access to social safety networks and services, knowledge and communication gaps, and availability of water resources. The area was extremely susceptible to the effects of climate change, which led to disaster. The primary outcome, which also affects other sources of income, is the loss of livestock (97%) which is followed by food shortages (91%), decreased income (84%), feed scarcity (83%), water scarcity (80%), and crop failure (79%). Managing livestock, taking advantage of social capital, storing hay and crop residue, and destocking animals during the period of severe drought were the main strategies used to reduce the vulnerability and enhance the adaptive capacity. Furthermore, despite the government's numerous efforts to lesson enduring vulnerabilities and their effects, progress has not been encouraging because of lack of proactive action when faced with emergences. Hence, in order to decrease vulnerability and increase adaptive capacity, policymakers and development practitioners should collaborate proactively and develop area-specific adaptation strategies. These might include income diversification, increased access to water and pasture; installation of easily accessible market channels; and establishment of early warning systems that assist community preparation and resilience.
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DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-79165-w
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