Abstract
Local knowledge is critical to fill paucity in climate recordings, enrich the scientific inquiry of climate change, and balance the top down policy that emanates from global discourse of climate change. However, lack of methodology to document and incorporate with scientific inquiry became a bottleneck. In this regard, a simply but sensible methodology was introduced in this study to document and analyze indigenous ways of knowing climate change among subsistence farmers in the highlands of Ethiopia. Accordingly, local knowledge has offered worthwhile information and techniques on detection, attribution and impacts of climate change. It demonstrated pronounced changes in the local climate with concrete instances. It directly or indirectly supports the idea of anthropogenic causes but with cultural dimensions in it. It detailed the impacts observed on health, water, farming and infestation of insects and weeds. It has also revealed some psychosocial impacts that are rarely reported in the literature. These results illustrate the importance of local knowledge in complementing the scientific evidence of climate change with detailed and concrete evidences. Finally, through the application of a technique introduced in this study, it was learnt that some farmers may not feel they are adapting to climate change while carrying out the same adaptation strategies reported by others who claim adapting to climate change. This warrants the need to understand climate driven adaptive behavior along with a mix of non-climate drivers of adaptation.
This article largely borrows from Bizuneh (2013).
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Notes
- 1.
Very commonly, Ethiopia’s landmass is classified into two as highlands (land area above 1500 m asl) and lowlands. Highlands are home to 90% of the country’s population (Kloos and Adugna 1989).
- 2.
Administrative unit equivalent to district.
- 3.
Lowest administrative unit in Wereda.
- 4.
Initially data from 1991 to 2010 was thought. But data for the year 2010 was not ready at the NMA at the time of data collection. Thus, meteorological record from 1990 to 2009 was considered. In the case of Arsi Negele, 12 years (from 1998 to 2009) were considered due to unavailability of data from July 1992 to December 1997.
- 5.
In Amharic language.
- 6.
An Ethiopian proverb.
- 7.
Capital of Amhara National Regional State, and is a malarious area.
- 8.
Name referring to malaria in older times, when malaria was regarded as a lowland disease. Presently, that name is replaced by nationwide name ‘weba’.
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Acknowledgements
The author wishes to express his heartfelt gratitude to the Catholic Academic Exchange Service (KAAD), and Institute of Development Research and Development Policy (IEE) and RUB Research School of Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, for directly or indirectly providing financial support to carry-out this research as part of his PhD study.
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Mekuriaw, A. (2017). Towards a Methodological Approach to Document and Analyze Local Knowledge of Climate Change: With Evidence from Rift Valley and Blue Nile Basins, Ethiopia. In: Leal Filho, W., Belay, S., Kalangu, J., Menas, W., Munishi, P., Musiyiwa, K. (eds) Climate Change Adaptation in Africa. Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49520-0_43
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