Climatic Change http://doi.org/dwb6 (2020).

Eastern African drylands are one of the areas most affected by climate change, with consequences for the pastoralist communities that comprise the majority of people living on these lands. Adoption of agricultural adaptation strategies in this region is relatively low due to compounding influences, from poverty, insecurity and conflict; however, these communities do use practices such as livestock migration or irrigation to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

In order to determine the factors impacting adoption of different strategies by pastoralist communities, Teresiah Wairimu Ng’ang’a from the University of Nairobi and colleagues assess socio-economic drivers of adaptation in a Kenyan Masaaii community. They find heterogeneous impacts arising from different drivers that are context-specific. For example, government assistance led to the uptake of adaptation strategies such as irrigation, which were more technical, while the quality of land influenced uptake of strategies meant to improve crop yields or livestock. Overall, the findings indicate that improved access to information as well as support of household innovation would enhance pastoral communities’ ability to adapt.