Elsevier

Global Environmental Change

Volume 17, Issues 3–4, August–October 2007, Pages 381-396
Global Environmental Change

Views from the vulnerable: Understanding climatic and other stressors in the Sahel

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2006.11.008Get rights and content

Abstract

In much of sub-Saharan Africa, considerable research exists on the impacts of climate change on social-ecological systems. Recent adaptation studies emphasize sectoral vulnerability and largely physical adaptation strategies that mirror anti-desertification plans. The adaptive role of subsistence farmers, the vulnerable ‘target’ population, is largely overlooked. This article aims to fill this gap by putting the views from the vulnerable in the center of the analysis. Drawing from participatory risk ranking and scoring among smallholders in central Senegal, data on multiple hazards indicate that farmers’ adaptive capacity to climate change is undermined by poor health, rural unemployment, and inadequate village infrastructure. Results from conceptual mapping reveal incomplete understanding of causes and consequences of climate change. Yet, shared knowledge and lessons learned from previous climatic stresses provide vital entry points for social learning and enhanced adaptive capacity to both wetter and drier periods now and in the future.

Introduction

Africa has been portrayed as one of the most vulnerable regions to the impacts of global climate change due to her low human adaptive capacity to anticipated increases in extreme events, resulting from widespread poverty, heavy reliance on rain-fed agriculture, lack of economic and technological resources, and insufficient safety nets and educational progress (IPCC, 2001; Reid and Vogel, 2006). Some argue that Africa, already close to the limits of her coping ability (Sokona and Denton, 2001), also encompasses the most vulnerable regions and populations to current climate variability (Davidson et al., 2003). While many African societies have been exposed to climate variability for a long time and have developed adaptive strategies to respond to it (Mortimore, 1998; Mortimore and Adams, 2001), this notion of victimization tends to downplay accumulated experience in the face of future climatic changes or extreme events that exceed the current adaptive range.

In much of sub-Saharan Africa, with the likely exception of South Africa, most research on vulnerability to climate change has focused on exposure to climate stimuli and impacts on natural and human systems, mainly from a sectoral perspective. A multitude of national reports exist to describe the impacts of climate change on agriculture, energy, water resources, and coastal areas (e.g. Mwandosya et al., 1998; EPA, 2000; SE/CNEDD, 2002). Much of the more recent adaptation studies also bear a strong resemblance to earlier impact assessments as they advocate primarily aggregate, sectoral strategies to respond to climate change stress. Sensitivity and adaptive capacity, the other two determinants of vulnerability (Adger, 2003; Smit and Pilifosova, 2003; Yohe and Tol, 2002), have received comparatively less attention. This bias is reflected in the largely technical types of adaptive responses that have been proposed in individual country reports on climate change vulnerability and the first National Adaptation Programs for Action (NAPAs). Drought-resistant crop varieties, micro-irrigation, the construction of dykes, reforestation, and seasonal climate forecasts are some of the favorite adaptation options for the agricultural sector (Nyong, 2005). These measures are essentially synergistic with anti-desertification plans. The adaptive role that these solutions offer to subsistence farmers, the vulnerable ‘target’ population, is tangential at best.

Impact-driven adaptation research, while providing vital information to scientists and policy makers, has viewed climate change mostly as a problem for society, not of society (Hewitt, 1997, cited in Vincent, 2004). It has added little to the understanding and enhancement of adaptive capacity among most vulnerable individuals and groups. International funding during the mid- and late-1990s spurred greenhouse gas emission inventories, the design of climate change scenarios, and sectoral impact assessments among African researchers (Dixon et al., 2003). Emerging ‘Type 1’ adaptation studies (Burton et al., 2002) reflect the preponderance of physical scientists in the growing adaptation community, most of whom also pursue research on climate change mitigation. Their proficiency and contributions notwithstanding, comparatively few efforts have been made to actively involve social science colleagues in the climate change arena and draw upon their expertise in rural livelihood studies, poverty reduction, and sustainable development.

Within the context of African smallholder farming systems, this prevailing emphasis on technical and infrastructural adaptive strategies is problematic for three reasons. First, it tends to overlook non-climatic drivers of vulnerability. Vulnerability is now increasingly seen as shaped by multiple causes that are also likely to aggravate impacts to climatic stress (Reid and Vogel, 2006; Schipper and Pelling, 2006). ‘Double’ exposure, for instance to climate change and globalization, has been demonstrated to alter vulnerability patterns among farmers in South Africa (Leichenko and O’Brien, 2002). Contextual weaknesses of rural livelihoods and factors of susceptibility that underpin people's daily lives, independent of climatic stress, are understood as components of social vulnerability (Adger, 1999). Examples that further heighten such intrinsic vulnerability are HIV/AIDS, deteriorating social networks, and poor governance (Reid and Vogel, 2006). Second, sectoral adaptive responses often disregard the fact that vulnerability and adaptation to climate change are exceedingly variable and linked to local contexts and places (O’Brien et al., 2004; Leichenko and O’Brien, 2002). One-size-fits-all approaches are likely to miss socio-economic and political–institutional dynamics of vulnerability and, hence, risk being ineffective, if not counterproductive. Third, the focus on agriculture as a sector and adaptive responses as predominantly technical solutions downplays the sensitivity of real people and vulnerable populations—mostly small-scale, resource-poor farmers—to the impacts of climate change and variability. Worse, it robs them of their agency to mediate hazards and successfully cope with and adapt to adverse impacts.

An alternative approach is ‘putting the vulnerable first’, as advocated by Paavola and Adger (2006). This requires an appreciation for vulnerability that is broader than the notion most impact-driven sectoral adaptation research and programs currently support. It embraces components such as initial well-being, livelihood resilience, self-protection, and social capital (Cannon, 2000), all of which go beyond the reductionist exposure perspective. It fosters the recognition of non-climatic factors, including sources of livelihoods, assets, access to resources, institutional networks, education, gender, race, ethnicity, and poverty that delineate vulnerable populations (Pelling and High, 2005; Reid and Vogel, 2006; Paavola and Adger, 2006). It allows conceiving complementary adaptation measures that either reduce human sensitivity and exposure, or minimize adverse non-climatic factors that, in turn, lessen sensitivity to climate-related stressors. Füssel and Klein (2006) cite vaccination against climate-sensitive vector-born diseases and the improved nutritional status as examples for alternative adaptation strategies. In other words, healthier people are more likely to respond effectively to climatic stress that those that are sick and frail.

Most importantly, this notion of ‘putting the vulnerable first’ entails a much stronger focus on resilience and adaptive capacity. The term resilience, with its origin in ecology, is usually defined as the capacity of a system to absorb sudden changes and disturbances while maintaining its function and control (Gunderson and Holling, 2002). Adaptive capacity is a key element of resilience. It is the capacity for renewal and reorganization and the element of learning in response to disturbance (Carpenter et al., 2001; Folke, 2006). According to Folke (2002), vulnerability is the flipside of resilience as declining or lost adaptive capacity lowers the ability of social actors to absorb changes.

In the climate change debate, adaptive capacity constitutes a central component of what Füssel and Klein (2006, p. 319) depict as ‘second-generation vulnerability assessments.’ Here, vulnerability of certain sectors to climate change is examined in concert with other stress factors, and the ability of people to respond to risks is emphasized. The authors define adaptive capacity as “the ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including variability and extremes) to moderate potential damages, take advantage of opportunities, or cope with the consequences” (2006, p. 319). This view challenges the deterministic notion of presumably vulnerable groups as passive victims by highlighting people's skills, strategic responses, and agency. Examples of resourcefulness at the household and community level have been demonstrated by Few (2003) in the case of responses to floods and by Thomas and Twyman (2005) for natural-resource-dependent societies in drylands. For agricultural systems, this empowering notion of adaptive capacity is reflected in the metaphorical ‘smart farmer’ (Smit et al., 1996). Füssel and Klein (2006) portray such ‘smart farmers’ as those who learn to use available climate information to adjust proactively to uncertainty and changes. Drawing upon farmers’ resourcefulness not only helps to understand past and current responses to climate variability and extremes but also to predict people's capacity to adapt to future changes (Bohle et al, 1994; Burton et al., 2002; Smit et al., 2000).

This compassionate rhetoric in support of the active ‘vulnerable’ notwithstanding, operationalizing this principle has proven difficult, particularly in Africa. Second-generation vulnerability assessments are still rare and require the strong involvement of both social scientists and local stakeholders, as well as a more concerted effort to use qualitative methods and data (Füssel and Klein, 2006). The fact that climate change is an ‘elusive hazard’ (Kates, 1985) and ‘cumulative, diffuse, slow-acting and insidious’ (Hood et al., 1992) obscures the risks associated with the stressor and possible damages and opportunities that local decision-makers perceive and upon which they act. In contrast to numerous studies that assess lay and expert views on climate change risks in the North (Löfstedt, 1991; Bostrom et al., 1994; Dunlap, 1998; Bord et al., 1998; O’Connor et al., 1999; Stedman, 2004; Belliveau et al., 2006), comparable research in Africa has been exceedingly scarce. With the exception of a small number of studies on seasonal rainfall forecasts in Burkina Faso (Roncoli et al., 2002; Ingram et al., 2002) and Southern Africa (O’Brien et al., 2000; O’Brien and Vogel, 2003; Ziervogel and Calder, 2003; Ziervogel, 2004), little is known about how resource-poor, rural African populations understand climate variability and change, associated risks, and consequences for their livelihoods.

This article is an attempt to fill this gap and complement existing adaptation studies by putting the ‘vulnerable’ in the center of the analysis. Drawing from participatory research in three agricultural communities in the Old Peanut Basin of Senegal, this study shows how small-scale farmers reflect upon the multiple hazards they face, perceive positive and negative aspects of climatic events, and assess their adaptive capacity to future climate change. Its conceptual and methodological approach is based on the premise that decision makers ought to understand what to adapt to first before deciding how best to prepare and respond.

The research was conducted 3 months after the end of the 2005 rainy season. Much of Senegal witnessed a peak in recently high precipitation records that are in stark contrast to the 1968–1997 very dry period in the Sahel. The 2005 record rains provided an ideal stage for exploring livelihood risks and opportunities of potentially more frequent and severe extremes. Since current climate predictions for the Sahel encompass both considerably enhanced rainfall and severe drying trends, as discussed below, it was imperative to assess how farmers themselves evaluated climatic events and trends for the future.

The paper is divided into five sections. Section 2 explains the overview of climate variability, including recent extremes, and projections for future climate change in the Sahel, with specific references to Senegal. The case study area and the two research methods, participatory risk ranking and scoring and conceptual mapping of climate variability, are described in Section 3. Section 4 presents the results on local risk perceptions, conceptual understandings of climate variability and change, and the impact of well-being on future adaptive capacity. The lessons from the field are discussed and suggestions for enhancing adaptive capacity in rural areas are presented in Section 5. In Section 6, I conclude by outlining the role of researchers in facilitating adaptation in vulnerable regions.

Section snippets

Climate variability in the Sahel and projections for future climate change

The Sahel, the semi-arid transition zone between the arid Sahara and humid tropical Africa, with annual rainfall varying from 100–200 mm in the North to 600–700 mm in the South (e.g. Nicholson, 1978), has a long history of climate stress events. For Senegambia, the western-most part of the Sahel, droughts have been recorded for the 1640s, 1660s–1670s, 1710s–1750s, 1770–1780s, and, followed by frequent famines, between 1790 and 1840 (Brooks, 1998, Brooks, 2004). Le Houerou (1977) describes severe

A new focus on the Old Peanut Basin: case study location and research methods

These recent climatic events and potential adaptive responses prompted a return to three rural communities in the Old Peanut Basin where the author had conducted research on terrestrial carbon sequestration from 2000 to 2002 (Tschakert, 2004a, Tschakert, 2004b). At that point, bekkoor (drought) was one of the most prominent themes during village discussions. In January and February 2006, the specific questions were as follows: How would local actors rank recent climate stress events compared to

Multiple stressors at the household and community level

As hypothesized, participants listed a variety of stressors (worries) that impact their well-being and livelihoods. Fig. 5 shows the combined results from men's and women's perspectives on major individual, household, and community problems. The most frequently identified worries, mentioned by more than half of all participants (I>0.5), were bad health, lack of money, and deficient and/or low quality food (upper right quadrant). The same three worries were also ranked highest in terms of their

Discussion

Adaptive capacity for dealing with climate change and variability, including extreme events, depends primarily on the extent to which (i) the problem is understood, (ii) knowledge is accessible to potentially vulnerable groups and policy makers, (iii) adaptive responses are recognized and available, and (iv) society as a whole has the resources to implement adaptive measures (Tarhule and Lamb, 2003; Füssel and Klein, 2006). Nearly 30 years ago, when Glantz (1987) described utopia (‘what ought

Conclusion

This paper has attempted to characterize the understanding of climate variability and change in the context of multiple livelihood risks from the perspective of Senegalese resource-poor smallholders. At the backdrop of abundant rains in 2000, 2001, and 2005, participants explored causes and consequences of these recent wetter years, compared to the preceding 30-year very dry period, and assessed their adaptation potential. The research findings underline the importance of tackling both climatic

Acknowledgments

The author gratefully acknowledges the valuable contributions of team members Agatha Thiaw-Massery and Djibril Diouf (Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles, Bambey) to field research and the community members of Thilla Ounté, Ngoldjilème, and Thiaytou who offered us a very warm welcome after 3 years of absence. I would also like to thank Ousmane Ndoye at the Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles, Bambey, for his institutional support, Michael Mann and Barry Smit for comments, and

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