Urban Resilience to Climate Change Shocks and Stresses in Mbale Municipality in Uganda
Loading...
Date
2019
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Climate change shocks and stresses are expected to increasingly affect urban areas
in Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA). However, there remain gaps in understanding local
precipitation extremes and influential factors that can enhance urban resilience. This
study synthesized determinants of urban resilience, investigated historic and
projected precipitation extremes up to the year 2050. Also assessed were factors
perceived to enhance resilience. These factors informed the proposed Municipality
Resilience Index (MRI) which was tested to assess the resilience index of Mbale
municipality. The study employed cross sectional survey and some elements of
grounded theory and fixed qualitative research designs.
A compendium of methods was used to realize the formulated objectives. To
synthesize determinants of urban resilience, a review of literature was undertaken
and subjected to summative thematic content analysis. To investigate precipitation
extremes, historic data for 32 years was obtained from Uganda National
Meteorology Authority (UNMA) while for future climate, modelled data was used.
Climate data was fitted in a Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) to compute
precipitation extremes. To assess factors perceived to be influential in enhancing
household resilience, 389 structured household interviews coupled with nine group
interviews were undertaken. Household data was subjected to linear regression
analysis to generate relationships while normalization, principle component analysis
and summations were used to generate a resilience index. Group interview data was
subjected to summative thematic content analysis to derive perceptions on priority
resilience factors.
Findings revealed that access to basic services, social networks, employment and
ownership of productive assets were the most reported determinants of resilience in
cities of SSA, with climate related shocks and stresses being the most eminent. SPI
results revealed more extremely wet and dry periods in 2004-2014 as compared to
1982-1992 and 1993-2003 with extremely wet periods concentrated in September
to January. Household perceptions supported this finding, emphasizing that dry
periods have become frequent, hotter and longer, in addition to heavy precipitation
periods. Modelled data indicated a likelihood of more extremely wet periods during
2021-2030 and 2031-2040 as compared to 2041-2050. Furthermore, future
predictions generally predicted more extremely dry periods during 2031-2040 and
2041-2050 as compared to 2021-2030. These threaten to pause risks to the
community of Mbale. Regression results showed that the ability of a household to
meet its daily expenditure, household size and networks with relatives and NGOs
had significant effects on resilience capacities. Most importantly, knowledge that
even the lowest income households were substantially more likely to prepare for
and recover from climate induced hazards if they are able to meet their daily
expenditure needs was valuable particularly in this context, as the poorest
population is generally most vulnerable. Summative thematic content analysis
13
revealed that education, healthcare, employment, peace and security were perceived
as the most crucial resilience factors. Although the community perceived to have
progressed in accessing credit, building productive farms and sustaining peace and
security, but they assessed a lack of diverse income generating activities, access to
insurance, food security, employment and quality health care. Moreover, more
marginalized parts of the municipality were experiencing decreasing resilience
while other divisions have increased in resilience. The most crucial resilience factors
informed the proposed multidimensional MRI that constituted of 46 variables
explaining the physical, social, economic and institutional dimensions. When the
MRI was tested, findings revealed that Mbale municipality has a low resilience
index (0.2).
The study concluded that future work needs to continue utilizing a multidimensional
approach to understand location-specific determinants of household resilience in
municipalities given their growing role in the strong urban growth trajectory
projected over the next decades. Practitioners and disaster risk reduction policies
need to promote: small household size, activities that can boost household ability to
meet their daily expenditure needs and social networks that shape household
resilience to enhance preparedness, recovery and adaptation. Additionally, policies
need to continue focusing on: access to insurance, food security, creating more
employment opportunities and provision of quality health care to enhance
household resilience. Furthermore, Mbale municipality local government needs to
redirect more resources to parts of the municipality with the least resilience index
to enhance household resilience.
Description
Keywords
Determinants, Precipitation extremes, Demographic, Social networks, Community perceptions, Index.
Citation
Oriangi, G. (2019). Urban resilience to climate change shocks and stresses in Mbale municipality in Uganda.