Climate Change Impacts and Sustainability

Ecosystems of Tanzania

Pius Z Yanda, Claude G Mung'ong'o, Edmund B Mabhuye, Pius Z Yanda, Claude G Mung'ong'o, Edmund B Mabhuye

• Publisher: CAB International
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781789242966
• eBook ISBN: 9781789242980
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Biological Sciences

This book provides a detailed analysis of the economic and environmental impacts of climate change on the tropical ecosystems in Tanzania. Topics covered include agriculture, marine resources, wildlife, and weather forecasting. The analyses concentrate on real and potential impacts of climate change, focusing on changes in temperature and precipitation. Adaptive capacity and strategies for enhancing resilience (such as changing crop types and crop patterns in farming) are described.Particular attention is paid to climate change impacts on vulnerability and resilience in communities and ecosystems with special reference to extreme events such as droughts and flooding.The book: is among the first books to analyse in detail climate change effects in Tanzania, highlighting the unique vulnerability of communities and ecosystems in East Africa from a socio-ecological point of view.discusses potential future threats as well as providing solutions to current problems.examines the application of local knowledge systems when formulating solutions.The book is essential reading for researchers on climate change and socio-economic impacts in tropical rural economies and of broad interest to climate change scientists, tropical ecologists, conservationists and agricultural scientists.

1	Introduction Claude G. Mung’ong’o, Pius Z. Yanda^* and Edmund B. Mabhuye^* Institute of Resource Assessment, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

^*[email protected] and [email protected]

An Overview

The increasing threat of climate change puts arduous demands on the human spirit towards a sustainable planet, ‘as the sheer magnitude of the problem and the potential to challenge existing paradigms beyond the thresholds of historical practice make it one of the most complex and far reaching issues humans have ever encountered’ (Engle, 2011). While discussions on possible responses to climate change in the international arena have more often than not concentrated on mitigation, there are similarly important implications regarding the ways ecosystems and societies at the local level will adapt to climate change. Researchers and practitioners are faced with the need to figure out how best to prepare ‘for the expected and unexpected impacts of climate change’ (Engle, 2011).

Tanzania hosts a variety of ecosystems, including mountains, drylands and wetlands, coastal and marine ecosystems, many of which are transboundary (Taylor et al., 2011). As pointed out by Boon and Ahenkan (2011) for Ghana, the link between climate change, ecosystem services and livelihoods in African countries has been well established. For Tanzania these ecosystems directly support the livelihoods of many people and much of the country’s economy as a whole, providing goods and services that include food, water, medicine, building materials, fuel and numerous natural attractions that support tourism. Recent decades of escalating climate change impacts on these systems and livelihoods worldwide and the vulnerability of ecosystem-dependent communities raise concerns about the consequences of ecosystem changes for human well-being.

In the case of Tanzania, the pressure placed on its ecosystems has been steadily growing as the human population has increased, the economy has expanded, and more ecosystem goods and services have been appropriated, traded and consumed. Looking at the total mainland population growth trends for the period 1957–2012, we see a fivefold increase (Wenban-Smith, 2015). At the current rate of growth of 3.2%, the population of 59.3 million is projected to increase more than fivefold by 2100, making Tanzania one of the ten highly populated countries in the world by the close of this century (Anyimadun, 2016). The relationship between population growth and economic development is complex (Agwanda and Amani, 2014), but it is undeniable that the tripling of the population since independence has placed pressure on the natural resource base as observed by Fang et al.(2018) for China.

Tanzania’s focus in promoting an agro-industrial economy will most likely be based on the expansion, development and commercialization of agriculture. The Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) area and Lower Rufiji have been earmarked as high potential areas for promoting such agroprocessing industries. The SAGCOT investments are, for example, already envisaged to increase export of processed foods and foreign earnings for national and local development. While doing so, based on the SAGCOT blueprint (2011), SAGCOT initiatives are intended to be sensitive to environmental issues by only focusing on agricultural land (around 5 million ha), leaving out protected areas, considering climate change impacts and envisaging how to reduce climate change vulnerability. No such precautionary measures have been taken for other sensitive but potential areas such as the Lower Rufiji.

The dynamics and main drivers of the change, the vulnerabilities and adaptation strategies being used by the communities have, however, not been clearly understood. Conventional approaches to understanding climate change have been limited to identifying and quantifying the potential long-term climate impacts on different ecosystems and economic sectors. While useful in depicting general trends and dynamic interactions between the atmosphere, biosphere, land, oceans and ice, this top-down, science-driven approach has failed to address the regional and local impacts of climate change and the local abilities to adapt to climate-induced changes. This impact-driven approach has since given way to a new generation of scholarship which utilizes bottom-up or vulnerability-driven approaches that assess past and present vulnerability, existing adaptation strategies, and how these might be modified by climate change. The research themes addressed in this book have focused on such impacts of climate change on ecosystems and communities in Tanzania.

Extreme events such as heat waves are among the most challenging aspects of climate change for societies. Climate models consistently project increases in temperature variability in tropical countries over the coming decades, with the Amazon as a particular hotspot of concern (Bathiany et al., 2018). During the season with maximum insolation, temperature variability increases by ~15% per degree Celsius of global warming in Amazonia and Southern Africa and by up to 10% per degree Celsius in the Sahel, India and South-east Asia. Mechanisms include drying soils and shifts in atmospheric structure. Outside the tropics, temperature variability is projected to decrease on average because of a reduced meridional temperature gradient and sea ice loss. The countries that have contributed least to climate change, and are most vulnerable to extreme events, are projected to experience the strongest increase in variability. These changes would amplify the inequality associated with the impacts of a changing climate (Bathiany et al., 2018).

As noted by Serdeczny et al. (2016), the repercussions of climate change are being felt in various ways throughout both natural and human systems in sub-Saharan Africa. According to these authors, climate change projections for this region point to a warming trend, particularly in the inland subtropics: (i) frequent occurrence of extreme heat events; (ii) increasing aridity; and (iii) changes in rainfall – with a particularly pronounced decline in Southern Africa and an increase in East Africa. The region could also experience as much as 1 m of sea level rise by the end of this century under a 4°C warming scenario. Particularly vulnerable to these climatic changes are the rain-fed agricultural systems on which the livelihoods of a large proportion of the region’s population currently depend. Impacts across various socio-economic sectors are likely to amplify the overall effect but remain little understood.

Several local studies have been carried out on the impact of climate change on livelihoods and development, especially in developing countries. However, there is a general scarcity of literature that makes a comparative appraisal of the impacts of climate change across the various socio-ecological systems, including on agroecological-based livelihoods across the African continent. Dube et al. (2016) have attempted to address this gap by making a comparative analysis of the effects of climate change on agro-based livelihoods across the African continent, focusing on Eastern, Western, Southern Africa and the Sahel region. They have tried to provide a continental perspective on this issue in an attempt to inform current global climate change negotiations and response strategies both at global and national levels. Despite this noble effort, there remains a dearth of literature that reviews and consolidates these findings to give an overall holistic picture about continental and subcontinental impacts in Africa, especially in relation to local agroecological-based livelihoods.

The collection of papers presented in this volume provides a fairly detailed analysis of the impacts of climate change on various tropical ecosystems in Tanzania and their related aspects of economic endeavour – from agriculture, marine resources and wildlife to weather forecasting. The analyses concentrate on real and potential impacts of climate change, focusing on changes in temperature and precipitation, as well as alternative adaptive capacity and resilience-enhancing strategies such as changing crop types and cropping patterns. Across all of the analyses, particular attention is paid to impacts, vulnerability and resilience of ecosystems and communities to climate change outcomes with special reference to the impacts of extreme events such as droughts and flooding.

The chapters in this book, taken as a whole, represent some of the early attempts at analysing the implications of climate change carried out at the Centre for Climate Change Studies (CCCS) of the University of Dar es Salaam. The chapters employ ‘a bottom-up systems approach’ (Arndt et al., 2012) whereby the implications of climate change are evaluated based on analytical models from agriculture, wildlife management and weather forecasting systems. In order to deliver a comprehensive analysis, the authors of the chapters, by necessity, hail from multiple disciplines. This comprehensiveness of the key issues, multidisciplinarity, and structural approach allows for more robust insight into the potential implications of climate change. The approach also allows for experimentation with alternative policy options for achieving research and development objectives in the context of climate change.

Structure of the Book

After this introductory chapter the rest of the book is structured in four parts. Part I considers the issues of vulnerability and resilience to climate change of agropastoral systems that include cropping systems, pasture and grazing lands, and animal management. The many crops and livestock varieties kept in Tanzania are grown and reared in diverse climates, regions and soils. No matter the region, however, weather and climate factors such as temperature, precipitation, CO₂ concentrations and water availability directly impact the health and well-being of plants, pasture, rangelands and livestock. For any agricultural commodity, variation in yield between years is related to growing-season weather, which also influences insects, disease and weeds, which in turn affect agricultural production (CCSP, 2008).

In Chapter 2 Temba and colleagues tackle the issue of climate variability and change among the coffee and banana growers in the highlands of Moshi Rural District, Tanzania. The study focuses on uncovering the state of knowledge and strategies used by farmers to address the impacts of the climate variables by assessing people’s perceptions to them in the study area. In addition, the chapter assesses the coping strategies employed by the smallholder farmers to improve production as well as the challenges that the smallholder farmers face in adapting to adverse impacts of climate variability and change.

In Chapter 3 Mbwambo and Liwenga investigate the role that is played by the root crop cassava in helping adaptation to climate variability and change in the coastal areas of Tanzania. Basing their study in the coastal district of Mkuranga in the Coast Region, these researchers’ objective was to deepen understanding of the role of cassava as an adaptation crop to the changing climate, so as to promote cassava production and ensure household livelihood and food security in the coastal areas.

In Chapter 4 Shirima and Mung’ong’o report on research that investigates the agroecosystems’ resilience to climate change on the footslopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, and attempts to develop a social–ecological vulnerability index for the area. The specific research objectives of this study include identifying and assessing the farming practices of the area in terms of their susceptibility to the impacts of climate change. It also examines the agroecosystems’ natural resilience to the impacts of climate change.

Conservation agriculture (CA) thrives on the three major pillars of: (i) minimum or no tillage; (ii) permanent soil cover; and (iii) crop rotation. CA has been seen to be the alternative production method that can significantly not only improve soil quality, but also contribute to more economically viable farming systems that are environmentally friendly and climatically sustainable. In Chapter 5 Zimba and Liwenga assess whether the implementation of CA is incrementally improving the livelihoods of farmers in the Balaka District of Malawi, and thereby serving as an effective adaptation measure to drought in that part of Africa. The authors also assess the challenges and opportunities of CA as an adaptation strategy to climate change.

As far as livestock is concerned, Yamat and Mung’ong’o provide in Chapter 6 a comparative cost–benefit analysis of mobile and sedentary pastoralism in Tanzania. Using two cases from northern Tanzania the researchers try to answer the question whether sedentary livestock raising is more productive and utilizes fewer resources and space than the mobile pastoral system in the context of climate change (Niamir-Fuller, 1999; Hesse and MacGregor, 2006). This study attempts to update the debate in an effort to appreciate the social and economic benefits of mobile pastoralism against that of the sedentary system.

Part II of this volume deals with studies in the socio-ecological system based on the belief that ‘society is formed and reformed in and through constant interaction with both its social and natural environments’ (Baker, 2016). In this context, social environments are taken to be a function of the various individuals and groups that comprise them and the natural environments that sustain them. As elaborated by Baker (2016) ‘natural environments can also be seen as both making certain forms of life and society possible, while in turn being modified by the forms of life and society that are actually created’.

In the Marxian conceptualization, nature is in a constantly changing dialectical relationship with humans. Just as human beings are embedded in the natural world, and are shaped by it, nature too is continuously shaped by our interactions with our environment (Marx, Das Kapital, 1890–1894, as cited in Baker, 2016). This relationship can be beneficial or harmful to humans, just as humans can interact in ways that ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• Part I Climate Change and Agropastoral Ecosystems
• Part II Climate Change and The Socio-Ecological System
• Part III Knowledge Systems and Climate Change
• Part IV Conclusion
• Index
• Cabi
• Back