The relevancy of community-based adaptation strategies for environmental risk reduction in the Mountain Elgon Region, Eastern Uganda.

Abstract

Globally, environmental risks have increased in frequency and severity impacting human wellbeing and sustainability. Given the surging environmental risks, there is need to leverage on potentials of Community-based Adaptation (CbA) as a bottom-top approach that empowers local communities to draft locally led initiatives aiming at reduction of environmental risks. Little has however, been documented to address the relevancy of CbA strategies in reducing risks especially in mountainous regions of Uganda. This study developed Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) models to (1) rank the complex-casual relationships among the determinants of risks, (2) assessed the contributions of CbA strategies in reducing risks. The study also examined the barriers to CbA strategies in reducing risks in the Mountain Elgon region. A cross sectional survey was adopted to obtain quantitative and qualitative data following purposive and stratified random sampling techniques that were used to select a sample of size of 313 respondents. Data was collected by questionnaires, interview guides and observation checklists. BBN models were developed following established guidelines. Both descriptive analysis and inferential statistics were performed to generate summarized statistics and bivariate analysis to assess the association between the outcome and the independent variables respectively. BBN analyses were performed in Netica software and other analyses were conducted in Stata software, version 18. BBN model accuracy levels were 91.9% for the determinants of risks and 93.5% for contributions of community-based adaptation strategies. For objective1, the probability of all the determinants to increase environmental risks was 75.5%. For objective 2 the probability of CbA strategies to reduce environmental risks was 49.65%. For objective 3, the significant factors hindering CbA in Mt Elgon regions include; marital status, flood frequencies, insecure land tenure, insufficient labor, lack of access to information, high upfront costs and communication barriers. The BBN mode results provide key intervention areas for reducing risks. The study recommends enhancing sensitization on community-based adaptation implementation and how best each individual can be put on board to enhance risk reduction.