Assessing the Influence of Drought and Coping Strategy Focus Pastoralist: The Case of Melka Sodda Woreda, West Guji Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Teshome Deresse^* and Belay Daba
^*Correspondence: Teshome Deresse, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Ethiopia, Email:

Keywords

Drought • Copying strategy • Pastoralist • Severe impacts

Introduction

Background of the study

Drought is normally defined as a prolonged period of abnormally dry weather conditions leading to a severe shortage of water and a natural temporary feature of the climate cycle that causes damage and can have severe impacts in most regions of the globe [1]. Drought occurs when the seasonal precipitation drops below normal or long term average [2]. The Horn of Africa (HOA) region is characterized by drought, which is known to have the most far-reaching impacts of all-natural disasters.

About a century ago, the frequency of drought occurrence in the country was once every 10 years [3]. However, the special extent and frequency of drought events have both increased and it is now occurring once every five years or even less at different intensities causing significant impacts on agricultural output, economic loss, and adverse social consequences. This condition would increase the vulnerability of pastoralists to climate extremes, aggravated by the low adaptive capacity of households, which exacerbate other economic, social, and environmental problems [4]. Ethiopia is a country which has more than 12-15 million pastoralists who live in approximately 62% of the country's landmass predominantly in the lowlands of the country though it seems that this figure is a minority when it is compared to the rapidly growing population of the country which is close to more than 90 million [5].

Coping strategies refer to strategies that have evolved through peoples' long experience in dealing with the known and understood natural variation that they expect in seasons combined with their specified responses to the season as it unfolds [6]. In southern Ethiopia, pastoralists have been developed various possible coping strategies to overcome the distress effect of drought through their experience. However, the increased frequency of drought threatens to overwhelm these coping mechanisms and resilience of the pastoralists [7].

Traditionally, the pastoralists were using rotational grazing; communitybased restocking (Buusa-Gonofa), Ameessa (milking cow loan), mobility, migration, reducing food intake, bleeding, calf slaughtering and more recently destocking, livestock diversification, and livelihood diversification because of peripheral inspirations [4,8]. Knowledge about pastoralists' coping responses to drought stresses can guide possible intervention measures, as well as a better policy designed to reverse the decline in pastoral production systems, and hence ensure the continued sustainability of rural livelihoods in the pastoralist community.

The special extent and frequency of drought caused significant impacts on agricultural output, economic loss, and adverse social consequences [9]. This condition would be increased the vulnerability of pastoralists to climate extremes, aggravated by the low adaptive capacity of households, which exacerbate other economic, social, and environmental problems. To reduce these negative effects of drought, pastoralist coping strategies that have evolved through peoples' long experience in dealing with the known and understood natural variation that they expect in seasons combined with their specific responses to adverse drought risk. However, most of the coping mechanisms become less operable in many ways in today's situations:-expansions of farmland, land degradation, high human population growth, increasing in drought duration, intensity and coverage of drought with erratic, highly intensive and short duration rainfall has delimited pastoralist coping strategies [10].

The above researchers and others excreted their effort on drought impact and pastoral household livelihood diversification as coping strategies for rural risk management. Thus, this study would be expected to fill the gaps of duration and severity of drought, its effect, challenges, and the most important coping strategies used to alleviate existing pastoral frequent drought prevalence impacts. Therefore, this study came to fill the gap by assessing the effects of drought and coping strategies focus on the pastoralist of Melka Soda Woreda.

Research Hypothesis

Based on the specific objectives the following hypothesis is formulated

Hypothesis 1:

H0-There is no significant relationship between drought influence and pastoral coping strategies?

H1-There is a significant relationship between drought influence and pastoral coping strategies?

Hypothesis 2:

H0–There is no significant effect between pastoral coping strategies and factors affect coping mechanisms?

There is a significant effect between pastoral coping strategies and factors that affect coping mechanisms?

(Note: Factors of drought impact are: Socio-Economic, Environmental, water, and Pastureland)

(Effects on coping strategies: Human population Pressure, Deforestation, Expansion of Farmland, Improper settlement Pattern).

Research Methodology

Description of study area

The study was conducted in Melka Soda in the Guji zone, Oromia regional state. Melka Soda Woreda is one of the Woreda of the Guji zone. The Woreda is situated in Latitude/Longitude of 38°46'00'' 38°46'45'' E and 5°06'00''- 5°07'20'' N. Melka Soda Woreda is located in the northwest part of Guji zone. The astronomical location of Melka Soda Woreda is between350 East and 300 West (Figure 1).

Research design

Both descriptive and explanatory research design employed for this research. To attain the objective of this research a community-based crosssectional study design (both quantitative and qualitative approach) was employed. The descriptive research design used to describe the demographic characteristics of respondents and Explanatory design using a quantitative approach of data collection and analysis.

There are a total of 32,376 household members who were registered in the Melka Soda administration office. The researchers were employed in-depth interviews with eight (8) informants and two FGDs from Woreda and Kebele officials, Aba Gada, community elders, and pastoralist workers. Therefore, the total numbers of the household head for three kebeles of Soda Garmama (858), Hidi Nagelle (1078), and the Baya Gundi kebeles of the population (1320) select as a study sample frame. To get adequate representation from the total population, statistical formula where applied [11].

Where, n is the sample size, N is the population size, and e is the level of precision. By using this formula at 93% confidence level and 7% level of precision the sample size obtained as follows:

The researchers were selected 192 respondents from the total members of the household head (Table 1).

Table 1. Sample Distribution. 

The sampling techniques were both stratified and simple random sampling. The face to face interview was purposively selected.

The study was used in both primary and secondary sources of data. The primary data was collected through questionnaires, Field Observation, FGD, and a face-to-face interview. Secondary data sources were used in this research both hard copies and online materials such as published, unpublished, articles, project reports, and other data available at woreda.

Method of Data Analysis

Descriptive, inferential analysis and model specification

Quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed in the analysis of the data. The statistical summaries of the result were presented in the form of percentages and tables using computer data analysis package such as the statistical package for social science (SPSS-IBM version 20) and other relevant software to help interpret results. Regression Analysis was conducted to examine the three levels of the independent variable and for predicting the unknown value of a variable from the known value of two or more variables.

The Model was developed using three explanatory variables or predictors, which had influences on pastoral coping strategies. In this study, the equation of multiple regression models was; Y= βo + β1X1+ β2X2+ and β3 X3, Where; Y-is the value of the dependent variable (Pastoral Coping strategies). β0 – show the average effect on Y if all variables are excluded from the model. The parameters β1, β2, and β3 are the regression coefficients of parameters X1-X3-independent variables Where (X1- Socio-Economic, X2-Water and Pastureland, and X3- Environmental impact, ε - The total error of prediction (residual)(Table 2).

Table 2. Multiple Regressions. 

Result and Discussion

Descriptive, inferential analysis and model specification

Quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed in the analysis of the data. The statistical summaries of the result were presented in the form of percentages and tables using computer data analysis package such as the statistical package for social science (SPSS-IBM version 20) and other relevant software to help interpret results. Regression Analysis was conducted to examine the three levels of the independent variable and for predicting the unknown value of a variable from the known value of two or more variables.

The Model was developed using three explanatory variables or predictors, which had influences on pastoral coping strategies. In this study, the equation of multiple regression models was; Y= βo + β1X1+ β2X2+ and β3 X3, Where; Y-is the value of the dependent variable (Pastoral Coping strategies). β0 – show the average effect on Y if all variables are excluded from the model. The parameters β1, β2, and β3 are the regression coefficients of parameters X1-X3-independent variables Where (X1- Socio-Economic, X2-Water and Pastureland, and X3- Environmental impact, ε - The total error of prediction (residual)(Table 2).

Table 2. Multiple Regressions. 

Conclusion

The main aim of this study was to identify the Influences of Drought and Coping Strategy focus pastoralist the case of Melka Soda Woreda. The result of descriptive statistics showed that most of the respondent response found strongly agrees on ranges for all independent variables influence on pastoral coping strategies. This indicated that the pastoral coping mechanism by pastoral households was determined by predictors (socio-economic factors, environmental factors, and water and pasture land). The correlation analysis shows that the three (socio-economic factors, environmental factors, and water and pasture land) that determine the pastoral coping mechanism of pastoral households had a significant and strong positive relationship with socio-economic factors, environmental factors, and water and pasture land of pastoral households.

Regression analysis (R-square) was identified the R-value as 0.963a which suggests that 96.3% was the value of multiple correlation coefficients between the predictors and the dependent variable. The squared multiple correlation coefficients, R2–value shows the percentage variance in the dependent variable that can be explained by predictors, which as per 92.7%. This meets the assumption of non-zero variance based on the fact that R2- value the variance in the predictor values, which in this case is not equal to zero.

The third value that of the adjusted R2- value can be used to determine how well the model can be generalized, where ideally the adjusted R2-value should be the same or closer to the R2-value which was 92.7% shows a difference in the model of 0.001 (0.927-0.926) which were small and means that if the model were applied to the population, it would account for 0.1% less variance in outcome. Therefore, the three variables had a significant relationship with the pastoral coping mechanism of pastoral households in Melka Soda Woreda. Accordingly, socio-economic factors, environmental factors, and water and pasture land, with a beta value of (0.452, 0.386, and 0.159) respectively. Therefore, all null hypotheses were rejected, and instead, alternative hypotheses were accepted.

Acknowledgements

<p>We want express our appreciation to Melka Soda administration, experts
  and respondents for sharing their valuable experiences, material as well as
  cooperation to conduct the study.</p>

Conflict of Interest

Author declared no conflict of Interest.

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