Climate Change, Rural Livelihoods, and Human Well-Being: Experiences from Kenya

Abstract

Over the next few decades, climate change is set to fuel the existing degradation of ecosystems across Africa, leading to dramatic consequences for poor rural populations that depend largely on agriculture and fishing for their livelihoods. This chapter draws on the findings of a study that explored how climate change affects the livelihoods and ultimately the well-being of farming and fishing households in a remote rural area in Kenya and discusses the coping strategies adopted by these communities. Understanding how climate change impacts people’s livelihoods is important as a precursor to assist communities to adapt to and cope with the adverse effects of climate change. The results pointed to relatively wide utilization of traditional knowledge in coping strategies. Conversely, robust modern technologies for forecasting weather patterns remain under-utilized among the target population. The chapter concludes with recommendations to capitalize on and strengthen the existing coping strategies of the affected communities.

1. Introduction

All across Africa, anthropogenic factors, such as rapid human population growth, urbanization, pollution, deforestation, and depletion of natural resources, have given rise to an unprecedented degradation of ecosystems (savanna woodlands, coral reefs, tropical forests, wetlands, etc.), which in turn has increased the vulnerability of these ecosystems to climate change. Two key sources of livelihood in Africa, namely farming and fisheries, are under severe pressure from global climate change. Projected trends in temperature and rainfall [1] are likely to exacerbate existing patterns of poverty, food insecurity, and forced migration in sub-Saharan Africa.

Although the African continent is responsible for only 3.7% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it bears a disproportionate component of the impacts of climate change [2, 3]. It is projected that, over the next few decades, continued global warming will fuel an increase in average temperatures and extreme heatwaves in African countries, with accompanying spikes in both the frequency and intensity of rainstorms across the continent [4, 5]. In recent times, the increase of surface temperature in Africa has happened at a faster rate than the average for the rest of the world [1]. Extreme temperature increases across Africa are attributed to human-induced actions that are driving climate change, with agriculture and water counting among the most vulnerable sectors [3, 5].

Africa is regarded as the most vulnerable continent to climate change impacts because of its low adaptive capacity and overdependence on natural resource-based livelihoods [3, 5, 6]. In Africa, climate-induced changes are likely to have dramatic effects on the livelihoods of poor rural communities in particular, on a continent already struggling to eradicate poverty as part of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 [7]. Agriculture and fishing are usually the prominent livelihood activities in rural communities in Africa but are highly vulnerable to increased extreme weather-related events caused by climate change [5]. By 2080, agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to drop from 21% to 9% because of climate change [8]. An increase of between 1.5°C and 2°C in global warming is projected to trigger severe economic and ecosystem impacts in the form of reduced food production, biodiversity loss, water shortages, loss of lives, and increased levels of human morbidity across the continent [5]. There is, however, a lack of extensive knowledge about how climate change affects farmers and fishermen at a finer scale, as most predictions in this regard are mainly based on global climate change models [1].

In the east African state of Kenya, poverty and food insecurity have been exacerbated by the changing climate of recent decades, to such an extent that climate change is now hampering efforts to achieve sustainable development in the country [9]. Identifying how climate change impacts people’s livelihoods is, therefore, essential as a precursor to an understanding of how communities can adapt to and cope with the adverse effects of climate change. Using one of the remote rural areas of Kenya in the Suba district, with resource-poor households that rely on farming and fishing as sources of livelihood, this chapter explores how climate change is affecting these livelihoods and ultimately the well-being of such households. More specifically, the chapter seeks to address the following two questions:

1. How does climate change affect the livelihoods of farmers and fishermen and their families in the Suba district of Kenya?

2. What coping strategies are currently employed by the affected communities to mitigate the impact of climate change on their livelihoods?

2. Climate change impacts in Kenya and the Suba district of Kenya

Historically, Africa’s contribution to carbon dioxide emissions has been minimal, but the continent has been affected by the adverse impacts of global warming more severely due to its combined pressures of high levels of poverty, weak health facilities, and limited capacity to adapt to the shifts in climate [5, 10]. Agriculture is the main source of livelihood for about 85% of Africa’s population [2] and contributes significantly to the Gross Domestic Product of most African countries. Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, however, have a low adaptive capacity to climate change because of several interlocking challenges, including high levels of poverty, poor access to credit for inputs, and poor infrastructure [11, 12]. Under climate change scenarios, crop yields are projected to fall even further in sub-Saharan Africa [5] where most of the people are already food insecure. Changes in rainfall patterns in sub-Saharan Africa, where agriculture is predominantly rainfed, are a serious threat to food security, nutrition, and general well-being of the people [13].

As for eastern Africa, the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [1, 5] projects a shorter rainfall season, an increase in temperature, and a rise in malaria cases because of the rise in temperature. With a population of 54 million, Kenya is the economic and financial hub of the region with the country’s economy mainly depending on tourism and rainfed agriculture [14]. Like the rest of eastern Africa, Kenya too is highly vulnerable to climate change impacts [15, 16] with an average annual temperature that is projected to increase by as much as 2.5°C between 2000 and 2050 [17]. Kenya is endowed with a diverse range of ecosystems that serve a number of pivotal functions in livelihood activities, such as agriculture, tourism, and fisheries. In Kenya, the evidence of climate change has been noted in soaring temperatures and irregular rainfall patterns that are characterized by intense downpours in the rainy season [18]. Analyses of climate data over the last 100 years suggest that Kenya has already been experiencing an increase in temperature of up to 0.8 degrees [19]. Rising temperatures have increased plant pests and diseases, thus affecting the quality of agricultural produce. For rural areas in Kenya, 75–80% of poor communities either directly or indirectly derive their sources of income from agriculture [2, 16]. Hence climate variability – even a small increase in drought frequencies and intensities – increases the vulnerability to food insecurity and water availability, especially in the arid and semi-arid regions of Kenya.

Agriculture in the Suba district of Kenya, as elsewhere in the country, has been drastically affected by intermittent droughts, soaring high temperatures, and delays in seasonal rainfall patterns that tend to destroy entire harvests [20, 21]. Climate change has altered rainfall patterns by delaying the onset of the March–September rain season, causing severe droughts and water stress [5]. The duration of the rainy season has shortened, but the intensity of the rains has increased [22]. Over-dependence on rainfed agriculture has made the communities more vulnerable to climate variability. Maize production, which is mainly produced under rainfed systems, has been reduced, leading to food insecurity. Livestock farming is also vulnerable to the changing climates as high temperatures decrease grazing fields and increase the prevalence of livestock pests and diseases [23, 24]. In addition, drought events directly result in a rise in food prices, leading to further food insecurity.

3. Theoretical framework: the sustainable livelihoods approach

The Sustainable Livelihoods Approach emphasizes natural resources as productive assets in sustaining rural livelihoods. A livelihood encompasses all the activities and capabilities that are required as a means of living and it is considered sustainable if it is able to withstand and recover from any adverse effects without eroding its natural resource base [25]. Climate change negatively impacts livelihood security and presents a livelihood disturbance, especially when adaptive mechanisms are limited. The Sustainable Livelihood Approach has proved useful to explain the adaption of rural households to the impacts of climate change, thus allowing for a more detailed look at livelihoods on a context-specific level [11]. This approach helps to develop intervention strategies that are, among others, people-centered, dynamic, responsive, and participatory and that happens in collaboration with public and private institutions [25].

There is wide consensus in the scientific community that anthropogenic climate change will affect ecosystem services, food production, and water resources – all of which are vital assets associated with human livelihoods [8, 26, 27]. The livelihoods framework states that people require several assets to achieve positive livelihood outcomes. These assets include human capital (education, health, etc.), physical capital (technology, infrastructure, etc.), social capital (networks, leadership, etc.), natural capital (water, land and produce, etc.), and financial capital (wages, savings, etc.) [25]. Communities that have access to more resources, or that possess highly diverse assets, are likely to have greater livelihood options and abilities to adapt to climate change effects. The increase in extreme weather events, however, has raised the level of vulnerability of marginalized communities through declining food security and disruption in livelihood activities that are essential for survival, including agricultural production and fishing [28].

4. Methodology

4.1 Description of the study area

The Suba district is located in the Nyanza province in southwestern Kenya along Lake Victoria (Figure 1). The district is one of the poorest in Kenya, comprising approximately 200,000 people who are densely populated in the Lake Victoria basin [30]. More than one-third (35.5%) of the population in Kenya lives below the poverty line of US$1.90 per day [31], but in the Suba district, the poverty incidence is as high as 52% [32].

Figure 1.

Map of the study areas [29].

Apart from mixed farming practices, some people in this district are highly dependent on the adjacent Lake Victoria for fishing at both subsistence and commercial scale. The Suba district is, therefore, mainly dominated by natural resource-based livelihoods comprising smallholder subsistence farming and fishing households. Unfortunately, the rapidly declining fish stock sizes and catches in Lake Victoria – the result of, among others, serious pollution problems over the past 20 years – are now threatening the food security and survival of more than one million Kenyans [16]. Major crops in the Suba district include maize, sorghum, cassava, and legumes, while bananas and sweet potatoes are grown widely as security crops that withstand drought periods and feed households in times of famine [33]. Livestock husbandry is also common in the form of households rearing cattle, goats, chickens, and donkeys.

The Suba district faces inadequate health provisions and high levels of poverty that have exacerbated the risk of climate-related diseases [32, 34]. Cholera, dysentery, and typhoid tend to increase as people are in constant contact with bacteria from inappropriate sewerage and waste disposal. The poor access to health care services is exacerbated by adverse climatic disasters that are posing health risks through malaria and cholera among households [35]. Communities in the Suba district are, therefore, now highly vulnerable to epidemics associated with extreme climate disasters.

Figure 1 shows the study areas comprising Mfangano Island, Rusinga Island, and Mbita point in the Suba district. All areas are located along the shores of Lake Victoria, giving inhabitants an opportunity for either fishing or farming livelihoods, depending on the landholdings and fishing rights, or availability of resources.

4.2 Research design and sampling

The research design was exploratory in nature and used a case study approach to investigate climate change impacts in the three selected villages of the Suba district. A quantitative research methodology was followed where the principal researcher [36] conducted face-to-face interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire as a measuring instrument.

A multi-stage sampling design was employed where, firstly, the three pre-selected villages of Rusinga Island, Mfangano Island, and Mbita point were purposefully sampled based on the already known prevalence of livelihood activities of farming and fishing in the area. Databases from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics containing a list with the names and addresses of all 2640 households in the three villages served as the sampling frame. In each village a total of 30 households were systematically sampled, bringing the total sample size to 90 households. This relatively small sample size resulted in a confidence interval (error level) of 10.2% at a 95% confidence level, which means that caution should be taken when extrapolating the findings to the rest of the target population. In all cases, personal interviews were conducted with the heads of households allowing the latter to seek consensus responses from their families.

4.3 Measuring instrument, data collection, and data analysis

The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework was used to inform the construction of the questionnaire. More precisely, the questionnaire was divided into segments that comprised of—i) household demographics (assessment of the human capital), which included questions such as: How many members are in your household? As a family, what do you practice as a primary source of livelihood? ii) Livelihoods, assets or ownership of properties including livestock, production and diversity of produce/yield levels, accessibility to safe drinking water, current fishing or farming constraints, awareness or perceptions on climate change, observed and expected climate change phenomena, climate change impacts, and coping strategies. Some of the questions asked to respondents were: What assets do you possess? What major crops and livestock do you produce? Have you experienced any changes in temperatures in the last few years? How do you cope with these impacts of climate change?

The questionnaire was initially drafted in English and then translated into the dominant local languages of Kiswahili and Kijaluo. All selected respondents were informed beforehand about the research to gain oral consent for their participation in the study. The principal researcher also approached community leaders or gatekeepers of the communities and explained the study to them and obtained formal permission for entering the communities. Apart from the principal researcher, an additional three enumerators of Kenyan origin were employed to aid in data collection. Data quality checks were done close to the data sources as well as during data entry. Because of the statistical limitations of the sample size as explained earlier, data analysis was restricted to the use of descriptive statistics and no inferential tests were run on the data.

While a strength of this study was our ability to draw on data from three villages that were interlinked, a limitation was that the sample size was limited, and further research, preferably a longitudinal study, could be done to explore climate variability and the perceptions of farmers and fishermen at different intervals over a longer period of time, instead of a cross-sectional survey. The study results were based on the respondents’ lived experiences and personal observations and as such might contain an element of subjectivity. Any bias in this study has nevertheless been minimized by asking respondents to make comparisons with historical trends benchmarked against previous farming or fishing seasons. Some of the responses, especially those pertaining to trends in temperature change and rainfall patterns, have also been compared with long-term official data and findings of other studies on climate trends in rainfall and temperature in Kenya.

5. Findings and discussion

5.1 Demographic profile of respondents

The survey results showed that the level of education among respondents (household heads) was relatively low, as almost 36% of the respondents had no formal education at all, while only 11% completed secondary education. Subsequently, it came as no surprise that only 41.8% of the respondents – dropping to as low as 23.3% in the case of Mfangano Island – had any awareness of climate change. The low level of formal education clearly impacted negatively on the perceptions and general knowledge of the respondents about climate change. More importantly, as pointed out in previous studies [1, 5, 10], such a lack of knowledge of climate change may affect the adaptation capabilities of the respondents through a lack of preparedness. This is supported by other studies that postulated the correlation between the level of literacy and the adaptive capacity of communities to climate change [21, 37, 38].

The most important asset for rural livelihoods in the study area was natural capital, namely access to land, livestock, and the fishing opportunities of Lake Victoria. The natural capital of the study area was supplemented by physical capital in the form of human-made necessities, such as shelter, boats, and fishing nets. Almost two in every three households (63.6%) had access to land and most owned that land privately. Approximately 33% of the respondents had farming as a source of livelihood, 41% solely relied on fishing, and 26% relied on both farming and fishing for survival. A lack of diversification into other income-generating opportunities made the community more vulnerable to droughts or floods that destroyed their crop production or reduced their fish catches – a situation that was no doubt aggravated by the low level of human capital. This further resulted in over-reliance on food aid during climate disaster periods.

5.2 Farmers’ and fishermen’s perceptions of climate change

Respondents in all three villages confirmed that they observed changes in climate over the five years preceding the interviews. The population might not be aware of the specific detail pertaining to climate change phenomena, but based on their traditional knowledge, they had noticed changes in climate patterns. Almost 85% of farmers and fishermen in the study area confirmed that they had experienced a significant increase in temperature, 43.3% experienced a decrease in rainfall, 83.3% reported changes in either the start or end of the rainy season, 30% reported an increase in floods, while 11.7% observed a decrease in the water of Lake Victoria.

These observations broadly correlate with official records of changing weather patterns in Kenya since the 1990s [6]. A further comparison of the respondents’ observations with an analysis of climate changes in Kenya for the period 1977–2014 confirmed a decrease in rainfall as well as a rise in temperature for this period [39]. Moreover, from 1960 to 2014 the average temperature has increased in all 21 arid and semi-arid regions for which the trends were analyzed [39]. In the same study, most pastoralists in the arid and semi-arid regions of Kenya confirmed that they experienced much lower rainfall alongside a high frequency of unpredictable rains and rising temperatures during this period. These trends are confirmed by The World Bank Group [40] who also found that Kenya has experienced rising temperatures over large parts of the country since the early 1960s. Since 1960, the annual mean temperature increase has been put at 1°C, while the average rate per decade has been estimated at 0.21°C. Further confirmation of rising temperatures was found in another study that tested for variability and trends in temperature in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania for the period 1979–2010 [41]. The findings of that study pointed to consistent increases in extreme temperatures in these countries for the four decades under analysis – a trend that correlates with increases in global mean temperature. Most of the extreme temperatures that occurred since 2000 were also higher than the mean temperature for the long-term period 1979–2010 [41]. At the same, however, no statistically significant correlations were observed for trends in rainfall since 1960 [40]. A study of trends and variability in precipitation in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia), too could not find any general pattern in rainfall for the period 1981–2016, as rainfall indices showed both increasing and decreasing trends in all three countries during the period under study [41].

Excessively heavy downpours caused floods and in some instances crop failure and hazardous conditions for fishermen in Lake Victoria’s open waters. From these findings, it is evident that climate variability is increasing in the Suba district. Farmer and fishermen respondents in all the villages perceived these changes in climate patterns as natural phenomena, rather than seeking the causes in anthropogenic factors. This lack of an informed, holistic understanding of the interface between the causes of climate change and the imminent threats that it poses to their livelihoods – a function of the poor human capital in the Suba district – inevitably hampers the ability of the respondents to adjust in a more strategic and coherent way to their environment and its changing ecosystems.

5.3 Impacts of climate change on farmers and fishermen

Extreme climatic conditions, combined with other external factors, significantly contributed to low productivity for farmers and fishermen. The survey results indicated an increase in food insecurity resulting from reduced crop yields, low fish catches, reduced livestock, and a decrease in general food availability in the study area. Almost half of the respondents (49.4%) mentioned sensitivity – a change in crop yields in response to a change in the mean and variability of temperature, 73.7% observed increased livestock mortality and 80.6% reported reduced food availability. Famers stated that reduced crop yields resulted in high poverty levels as their sources of livelihood were now vulnerable to climate disasters.

Fishermen in all three villages indicated a slight decrease in fish catches, resulting in increased food insecurity. A substantial proportion of fishermen in all three villages (59.4%) further observed reduced species diversity in their catches. Several other factors that were fuelled by climate variability, such as the increased risk of fishing in Lake Victoria due to violent storms and floods (62.3% of respondents), had significantly reduced fish catches. As a result, one-third of all the fishermen respondents (33.1%) reported a decline in their households’ annual net income.

5.4 Reduced human health

Adverse effects of climate change have resulted in an increase in communicable diseases that impacts human health. The target population mainly depended on unprotected water sources for domestic uses, thereby resulting in a surge of diarrheal diseases, cholera, and typhoid. Even though it was not directly investigated in the sampled population, such a lack of secure water sources may result in the surge of water-borne diseases in incidences of high rainfall and flooding.

A decrease in the availability of water for domestic purposes means that women had to travel longer distances to community boreholes – on average two to three kilometers per day – to fetch water. Few households had access to protected water sources and thereby resorted to unclean water sources. These findings are consistent with the prediction that water stress is estimated to increase due to climate change factors [42]. Such unprotected and unclean water was sourced from rivers, dams, ponds canals, and wells that are all liable to contamination by the disposal of both domestic and any other environmental waste. Water-borne diseases, such as cholera and dysentery, increase where there are no clean protected water sources [1, 5, 8, 43]. The respondents in the study area relied on using chlorine pills and boiling in some instances to treat their water for drinking. However, such methods were not always available to all as there were periods when communities struggle to access the chlorine pills.

5.5 Climate change adaptation and coping strategies of the respondents

Social capital in the form of informal networks within the three villages of Mbita point, Mfangano Island, and Rusinga Island were central to the everyday survival of the communities. Bonded ties and reciprocal relationships between friends and families enable the exchange of services and goods. The findings suggest that these informal institutions tend to be exclusive and are defined by kinship and neighborhoods. Such reciprocal links include the sharing of capital assets, information, cash loans, emotional support, food, and labor. For example, fishermen on Rusinga Island form groups for collective fishing using their physical capital in the form of cooperative assets, such as boats and nets. Maintaining these links with friends and families in the community offers households the opportunity to adapt or recover from climate disasters and helps them to buffer shocks.

Local communities also learned to adapt to the naturally changing environment by using their local and traditional knowledge to recognize and cope with these changes. It has been proven in several studies that indigenous knowledge of the environment helps local communities to respond actively to the challenges posed by climate variability [44, 45, 46]. The traditional climate prediction practices of using animal behavior patterns, moon characteristics, and tree phenology are still practiced in the study area. Even though the efficiency of some of the methods is debatable, these traditional practices have enabled the community to cope with climate variability to a certain extent. The use of indigenous knowledge and traditional warning systems to monitor weather changes is, however, being compromised as climate change is bringing more extreme and unpredictable weather patterns. Low mastery of this traditional knowledge by the younger community members further erodes its value in the community.

Respondents from fishing households tend to use traditional curing methods of preservation to enable their fish catches to last longer. This is because modern preservation techniques, such as ice, are expensive and inaccessible to them. Fishermen tend to smoke, oil fry, or salt-dry their fish for it to last longer in their food storage. These traditional methods of preservation can be effective in preserving fish catches for a certain period, thereby providing food and a source of income through market trade-in disaster periods [47].

Survey results also indicated that most respondents (71.3% of all households) relied heavily on food aid distributed by humanitarian aid agencies as a means of coping with droughts and floods. Monthly government handouts of maize, rice, and cooking oil also had buffered the population from hunger during droughts and floods. Furthermore, to address famine in the community, the Kenyan government had resorted to hand out cash for people who had been severely affected by droughts and floods [48].

Other coping mechanisms included borrowing money from other households, borrowing food on credit, and curtailing expenses on other things that were deemed as not basic, such as clothing and luxuries. For the farming households, the integrated crop-livestock system enabled the people to minimize the effects of droughts. In bad seasons, livestock was sometimes sold to cushion families against droughts and floods. Farmers also employed conservation farming practices, such as rainwater harvesting and crop diversification. Other, more resilient, crops such as sorghum, cowpeas, and groundnuts had been grown to buffer against climate shocks. Under periods of moderate drought stress, all these practices have helped to maintain crop productivity.

6. Conclusions and recommendations

The findings show that the Suba district has suffered significant changes in climate patterns in recent times. Some of the experiences and observations of the survey respondents are confirmed by analyses of long-term data for climate change in Kenya, such as those pointing at an incremental change in the mean temperature since the 1960s [39, 40, 41]. The survey results also suggested that many of the respondents did not attribute the climate change phenomena to anthropogenic activities, but rather to natural causes only, confirming that education levels do influence perceptions on climate change as suggested in other studies [21, 37, 38]. The research also showcased a relatively wide utilization of traditional knowledge in coping strategies. Indigenous knowledge in predicting seasonal weather and rainfall patterns, preserving grains for planting purposes, and various traditional farming support systems can be explored and adopted to lessen the impacts of climate change on their agricultural activities. Conversely, robust modern technologies for forecasting weather patterns remain under-utilized in this area. Merging local knowledge with modern science in Africa could, therefore, help in developing agronomical knowledge among farmers in climate change coping and adaptation.

The data confirmed that food availability in the Suba district had reduced due to climate change. Crop failure and low agricultural produce were greatly attributed to unreliable rainy seasons, droughts, and floods among other climate-induced factors, such as the increase of crop pests and diseases. Overall, low food production means low income, low self-sufficiency, and low levels of well-being in the household, thereby threatening human security. From the findings, it is further evidenced that climate change has proportionately caused more problems for the poor households in the Suba district due to their high levels of poverty, poor access to health care facilities, and their limited capacity to adapt to climate change. Low levels of human and physical capital, as put forward by the sustainable livelihoods approach, therefore, have a detrimental impact on households’ resilience and ability to cope with the changes brought by climate change.

The formation of network groups by the three villages created viable opportunities for intervention strategies that supported livelihood stability and climate change adaptation in a community participatory approach. Development practitioners in the three villages should, therefore, be careful not to undermine the traditional safety nets present, such as informal coping networks and traditional leadership when introducing or considering new community-based projects. Maintaining these networks of social capital has brought an element of flexibility to livelihood coping strategies during droughts and floods.

Institutional support from both government and donor aid agencies to mitigate the impact of climate change on the target population mostly came in the form of emergency support. This support was only a reaction, and not anticipatory, making the rural population continually dependent in a way that may not be sustainable in the long term. Climate services that should be considered by institutions include meteorological forecasts at finer (local) scales to help farmers adjust their planting and marketing strategies in line with reliable forecasts. Fishermen may also benefit from such meteorological forecasts, where they can avoid fishing in erratic thunderstorms. In addition, such reliable meteorological services will help disaster managers to be better prepared. The introduction of schemes to increase borehole ratio per radius in communities should also be considered. This will help communities to avoid the long-distance travel to access clean and safe water, which is often more than 3 km away, except where communities benefit from nearby institutions, such as schools. Sustainable technologies, such as rainwater harvesting, can also be introduced to store rainwater in tanks for the domestic and agricultural needs of the communities.

The introduction of incentives and compensation for environmental services can support coping strategies implemented by the communities in the study area. Communities might help in reforestation by planting trees and grasses in designated areas to maintain abundant grazing lands for livestock. Such initiatives can be combined with other mitigation efforts, such as rehabilitation of degraded landscapes and general landscape management. This will, however, require substantial funding from local and international institutions, together with dedicated leadership to manage the program sustainably.

Lastly, exploring social and predictive adaptive behaviors among vulnerable communities and identifying them through formative research can be helpful in designing successful programs that support or contribute to climate change adaptation.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to the following agencies and people who, in one way or another, assisted with this project: The Kenyan National Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Fisheries of the Suba district in Kenya, the communities, gatekeepers (chiefs and elders) and local government councils of Mbita, Mfangano Island, and Rusinga Island for their willingness to cooperate in the study.