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Adapting African Agriculture to Climate Change

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dc.contributor.author Kisaka, Oscar M.
dc.contributor.author Mucheru-Muna, M.
dc.contributor.author Ngetich, F.K.
dc.contributor.author Mugwe, Jayne
dc.contributor.author Mugendi, Daniel N.
dc.contributor.author Mairura, F.
dc.date.accessioned 2015-11-23T11:23:07Z
dc.date.available 2015-11-23T11:23:07Z
dc.date.issued 2015
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/550
dc.description DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-13000-2_5 en_US
dc.description.abstract Drier parts of Embu County, Eastern Kenya, endure persistent crop failure and declining agricultural productivity which have been attributed, in part, to prolonged dry-spells and erratic rainfall. Nonetheless, understanding spatialtemporal variability of rainfall especially at seasonal level, is an imperative facet to rain-fed agricultural productivity and natural resource management (NRM). This study evaluated the extent of seasonal rainfall variability and the drought characteristics as the first step of combating declining agricultural productivity in the region. Cumulative Departure Index (CDI), Rainfall Anomaly Index (RAI) and Coefficients-of-Variance (CV) and probabilistic statistics were utilized in the analyses of rainfall variability. Analyses showed 90 % chance of below croppingthreshold rainfall (500 mm) exceeding 213.5 mm (Machanga) and 258.1 mm (Embu) during SRs for one year return-period. Rainfall variability was found to be high in seasonal amounts (CV = 0.56 and 0.38) and in number of rainy-days (CV = 0.88 and 0.27) at Machang’a and Embu, respectively. Monthly rainfall variability was found to be equally high even during April (peak) and November (CV = 0.42 and 0.48 and 0.76 and 0.43) with high probabilities (0.40 and 0.67) of droughts exceeding 15 days in Embu and Machang’a, respectively. Dry-spell probabilities within growing months were high (81 %) and (60 %) in Machang’a and Embu respectively. To optimize yield in the area, use of soil-water conservation and supplementary irrigation, crop selection and timely accurate rainfall forecasting should be prioritized en_US
dc.language.iso en en_US
dc.publisher Springer en_US
dc.subject Cumulative-departure-index en_US
dc.subject Drought-probability en_US
dc.subject Rainfall-anomalyindex en_US
dc.subject Rainfall-variability en_US
dc.title Adapting African Agriculture to Climate Change en_US
dc.title.alternative Transforming Rural Livelihoods en_US
dc.title.alternative Seasonal Rainfall Variability and Drought Characterization: Case of Eastern Arid Region, Kenya en_US
dc.type Book chapter en_US


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