Climate Variability and Change, Impacts and Adaptation Strategies in Dutsin-Ma Local Government Area of Katsina State, Nigeria

This paper aimed at examining local peoples’ perceptions on climate variability and change and strategies adopted in combating the impacts of the changes in Dutsin-Ma Local Government Area of Katsina State. A total of 242 questionnaires were administered to households’ heads in the eleven wards of the Local Government Area. Descriptive statistics such as frequency distribution, percentage and mean scores were used in data analysis. The result revealed that majority of the local people have a very good knowledge of climate variability and change in terms of higher temperature, higher rainfall intensity and variability, and the occurrence of extreme weather events such as flood and drought. Findings also revealed that community disobeying God, deforestation, bush burning, combustion of fossil fuel and pollution were the major causes of climate variability and change as perceived by the respondents. The most significant impacts of climate variability and change as perceived by the local people were decline in crop yields, decline in forest resources, water shortages and decrease in soil fertility. These impacts have resulted to rural-urban migration in the area. Sustainable adaptation strategies adopted by the local people are water harvesting, the use of fertilizer/animals dung to improve crop yield, irrigation agriculture, planting of crop varieties and drought resistant crops. It is recommended that strategies for combating impacts of climate variability and change should take into account the traditional and religious beliefs of the people; and there is need to educate the local people to appreciate the scientific basis of climate variability and change.