Assessing the Vulnerability of the Residents of Rachuonyo North Sub-County to Climate Variability and Climate Change

Opere Jasmine Evelyn Ajwang, Francis Mutua, and John Kinyuru Ng’ang’a

Department of Meteorology, University of Nairobi, P.O. Box 30197—00100, Nairobi (Kenya)

https://doi.org/10.20987/jccs.2.08.2017

Corresponding Author

Address: P.O. Box 15160—00100 Nairobi

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

(Received 11 November 2016, received in revised form 3 July 2017, Accepted 2 August 2017)

 Abstract

Climate change is already impacting communities at household level. The analyses of the risks and vulnerabilities of the people living in a given area are important to understanding the impacts of climate variability and change in that given location. This Research perceived vulnerability as level of exposure by residents of Rachuonyo North Sub-County to socio-economic and climate risk and made attempts to empirically assess household vulnerability. Vulnerability Index (VI), calculated and normalized using United Nations Development Programme (UNDP,2009) vulnerability normalization method, estimates revealed higher vulnerability in Central Karachuonyo Ward followed by North Karachuonyo, Wang’chieng, Rambira and Kendu Town wards respectively. Vulnerability Index has an advantage of serving as a measurement metric for exposure of a population to socio-economic and climate risk. However, the use of Vulnerability Index may give misleading results if the functional relationship is not taken into account during the normalization process. From the results it is recommended that vulnerability assessment and mapping of Vulnerability Index over the whole County be undertaken.

KEYWORDS: Climate Change, Vulnerability Index, Rachuonyo North Sub-County

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