Abstract:
Climate change has been recognized as one of the highest environmental problems that the
humankind faced in this century. Climate change and variability affects all global society, while
pastoral community is more vulnerable to the impact. The objective of this study is to investigate
the climate variability, its effect and determinant of adaptation strategies among pastoral
households in Garowe District, Puntland State of Somalia. This study employed cross-sectional
research design with quantitative and qualitative approaches. The study used both primary and
secondary data collected from household questionnaire survey, focus Group discussion and Key
Interview Informants. The study also used climate data for the period between 2008 to 2021.
A total of 180 sampled households were randomly selected from two villages namely Gar-yaqaan
and Awrculus. Descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage were used to analyze
demographic, socio-economic and institutional characteristics of the sample respondents. MannKendall test and coefficient of variation (CV) were employed to analyze trend and variability of
seasonal and annual rainfall and temperature. The study also employed multinomial logit model
to identify factors that determines pastoral households’ adaptation strategies. The findings of this
study showed that rainfall decreased in general with high variability, while, temperature showed
increase with low variability. Most of the surveyed households reported that climate variability
affected their livelihood negatively. According to the findings pastoral households used different
adaptation strategies such as mobility, destocking, herd splitting etc. The results of multinomial
logit regression showed that sex, age, family size, active members in the family, livestock holding,
income, finance support, credit access, access to climate information are significant factors that
influence adaptation strategies. Hence, to increase adaptive capacity of the society, this study recommends increase in financial support, extension services and trainings, climate information
and early warnings, implementations of climate smart agricultural practices and finally, further
studies should be done on the topic, on the other areas in the Puntland and in Somalia as whole
