Climate Change-induced hazards are becoming increasingly common in pastoral areas, resulting in massive loss of livestock, livelihood disruption, and environmental destruction in various parts of the country. Climate Change has accelerated the intensity and frequency of climate change-induced hazards in most parts of Ethiopia, primarily pastoral areas. However, most pastoral communities have developed indigenous knowledge practices to cope with the impact of climate change through early seasonal and weather forecasting systems, using different adaptive mechanisms to reduce the risk of climate change. 

This project focuses on identifying climate change impacts on the pastoral and agro-pastoral communities of the Hamer people, their vulnerability to climate change effects as well as identifying core indigenous climate change adaptation mechanisms to integrate with the country’s policy and modern scientific ways to reduce the broad impact of climate change effects on their life, livelihood, and environment. This research seeks to identify potential indigenous knowledge of the Hamer people in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction to integrate with contemporary climate and disaster risk management scientific ways as well as to get intentions of policymakers to recognize their indigenous knowledge in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction policies of the country. 

Main Research Questions 

Research Team