| dc.description.abstract | Globally climate change has been a major impediment to achieving sustainable development among natural resource dependent livelihoods. Impact-based weather forecasting (IBF) has been recommended as prerequisite tools toward the adoption of adaptation strategies to curb climate risks. Owing to the severity of climate change and variability in the fishing economies, the fisher-folk have been a key target by meteorological departments and other climate change adaptation actors. With this understanding, in 2017 the Highway-Wiser project with Kenya meteorological department launched IBF in 10 beaches in Homa Bay County to reduce deaths, and destruction of property, and reduce loss of livelihoods. However, evidence shows that the uptake of IBF among fisher folk is limited at these sites. Additionally, there is a scarcity of systematic works into the issues pertaining to the uptake of IBF. Consequently, this study explored the factors that influence the uptakeof IBF among fisher-folk at the sites where it had been piloted in Kenya. Specific objectives were to: assess the fisheries-based determinants of fisher-folk access to IBF; explore the influence of fisher folk's perceptions on IBF uptake; examine the level of utilization of IBF, and finally, investigate the effects of IBF on fisher-folk's livelihoods. This study employed a conceptual framework based on Weather information dissemination, contextual adaptation, and usable weather information models to understand the uptake of IBF on fisher folk’s adaptation to storms. This study adopted sequential explanatory research design to enable a holistic exploration of the research questions. This thesis combined quantitative and qualitative research methods to allow the triangulation of data and methods. A proportional stratified sampling design was used and simple random sampling was applied to select respondents from each stratum. The total study population was 5, 760 out of which 422 respondents were drawn using the Fisher et al. (1991) formula. Quantitative data was systematically collected by the use of semi structured questionnaire. Qualitative data was collected using 6 focus group discussions (FGDs) and 35 key informant interviews (KIIs) from purposefully selected respondents from the user categories, and policy makers. Descriptive statistics; frequencies, percentage, graphs, and cross-tabulation were used to analyze quantitative data. Qualitative data were analyzed through thematic analysis. The research found a moderate level of fisher folk accessibility to impact-based forecasts. The determinant of fisher folk access to IBF varied on the basis of demographic, fisheries -context and IBF design and delivery factors. The key factors that explain variation on fisher folk access to IBF included; the BMU leadership, social network, adoption of flags and notice boards, exposure to storms, boat size and source of energy, fisher folk years of experience, channels and timing communication. The fisher folks were more aware about the existence of IBF. They also perceived IBF to be salient, fairly accurate but a good number lacked understanding on their spatial and temporal scale and perceived them to be unreliable and untrustworthy. This restricted the uptake of IBF to a few fishers’ folk. The study found out that only 18% of fisher folk surveyed were using IBF in their decision-making. However, the level of utilization of IBF varied across landing sites, gender, and fisher folk categories. Factors that explain the lower level of its utilization include fisher folk's over-reliance on their personal weather information, laxity among fishers, lack of involvement in mainstream fishing, lack of sensitization by BMU leaders, the need to fend for one's household, ignorance of the value of IBF among fishers, late provision of IBF information by BMU officials, and fisher folk false perception of safety particularly those using outboard boats. Factors contributing to the high utilization of IBF included; a high level of awareness, display of flags and notice boards, and training and understanding of the value of the IBF to their fishing decisions. The research found out the uptake of IBF benefited the fisher folk livelihoods. The study recommends involvement of community-based organizations to improve awareness and accessibility, need for more training on the use of IBF in fisheries decision making context. This research contributes to weather service uptake by illuminating the key factors that determine the uptake of IBF among fisher folk that can be applied to fisher folk communities in developing countries. | en_US |
