Description
Floods and drought afflict lower Nyando river basin in a cyclical pattern yearly. Each flood event is almost always followed by a drought event whose impacts include loss of lives, displacement of people, infrastructural damage and erosion of soils’ and waters sources’ potential to sustainably supply goods and services. This study explored the influence of socioeconomic factors on coping with impacts of Climate Change Related Disasters (CCRDs) namely floods and drought on the environment (soils and water sources). Descriptive survey research design was adopted, targeting a population of 162,162 and an accessible population of 14,675 households with a sample size of 374. Three divisions prone to both floods and drought were purposively selected from Nyando, East Kano and Nyakach sub-counties. Proportionate samples were drawn from eight (8) locations which suffer perennial floods and drought. A household questionnaire, key informants guide and observation schedule were used to collect data. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to anlayse data. Multiple regression tested at alpha p < 0.5% were used to correlate socioeconomic factors with coping. Most households engage multiple coping activities at different levels of intensity. Coping mechanisms that constitute Conservation Agriculture scored lower than conventional practices. Further, coping mechanisms on common (shared) natural assets also ranked lower than those on individual assets. Coping was significantly different across the divisions (p = .027). Whereas Gender (sex) (p = .022), age 56 – 65 years (p = .000) and 66 years (p = .014) and above significantly influenced coping of households, Level of education and farm size did not. The study recommends location specific interventions, upscaling of coping mechanisms, inclusion of socioeconomic factors in policy interventions targeting CCRDs, enhancement of extension services, and communal approach to resource management to enhance resilience-proofing against CCRDs and assure environmental sustainability.
Keywords: CCRDs, Coping, Impacts, Socioeconomic factors
