Location factors and spatial dependence in household perceptions and adaptations to climate change: A case in the upper Blue Nile Basin

Abstract

Studies on perceptions of, and adaptation responses to, climate change have not paid sufficient attention to location and neighbourhood effects. Moreover, although one often regards perceptions as preconditions for adaptation, some direct and underlying factors may influence perceptions and adaptations in opposite ways. To assess determinants of perceived directions of climate change and adaptations by farmers, the paper formulates ordered response and multinomial choice models accounting for the location and neighbourhood effects. Relative to a survey of rural households in the Ethiopian Nile basin, perceptions of long-term climate trends are found to substantially vary across regions, altitudes, distances from markets, and neighbourhood characteristics, with climate reference scales being themselves non-uniform across respondents. The inclusion of proxies for local spatial dependence and clustering in multinomial logit regressions on adaptation decisions provides further insights, relative to individual- and farm-specific features. Adaptation measures turn out to be largely independent from degree of awareness of negative trends in climate changes. This highlights the importance of adaptive strategies coordinated at regional and national scale, such as preventive measures of control of pest damage risk due to increasing temperatures, and specific interventions for semi-arid agro-climatic zones.