Assessment of Rural Communities’ Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change in Kaduna State, Nigeria

Abstract

This research is aimed at assessing the adaptive capacity of rural people to climate change in Kaduna State with particular reference to some selected communities in six Local Government Areas of the state. Data and information for this study were obtained from a direct field study based on the result of 426 questionnaires that were administered to household heads in the selected communities. Simple descriptive statistics was used to describe the socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents. In this study, five indices (wealth, farm inputs, availability of infrastructures and institutions, irrigation potentials, and literacy level) influencing rural people adaptive capacity to climate change were selected; and a five point Likert scale was used to assess the adaptive capacity to the changing climate. The results revealed that rural communities’ people in Kajuru LGA had the highest adaptive capacity to the impacts of climate change. Moderate adaptive capacity was recorded among the rural people in Kagarko, Soba and Sanga LGAs; while a low adaptive capacity was recorded in Ikara and Kauru LGAs.  Therefore, Ikara and Kauru LGAs would likely be the most threatened LGAs in the state to the impacts of climate change in terms of adaptive capacity. The study recommends the development of climate change policies that would enhance the adaptive capacities of rural communities at both the state and local government levels. These policies should be specifically geared toward low adaptive capacity areas with emphasis on poverty reduction.

Keywords: Adaptive capacity index, climate change, households, impacts, vulnerability