earth science journals

Climate change has become a serious challenge across the world. The challenges have more serious in the developing countries like East Africa countries. In East Africa, climate variability and change is linked to declining rainfall patterns, increased drought frequencies, floods, and extreme temperatures. The changing patterns of climatic events in particular uneven distribution of rainfall and recurrent droughts have adversely affected the pastoralists and their dryland. A studies by have shown that dryland communities, especially pastoralists are vulnerable to climate-induced stresses due to their low adaptive capacity, over dependence on climate-sensitive livelihood activities and less resilient production environments. The dryland of Ethiopia cover about 60% of the landmass of the country. Pastoralism and agro-pastoralism is the dominant land use system where extensive livestock production is the main livelihood of the communities. In recent years, however, extreme climatic events attributed to drought-induced livestock mortality, food insecurity, poverty and putting enormous pressure on the livelihoods of the pastoralists.