**1. Introduction**

Numerous international agreements on climate change, natural resources utilization, and development from the 2000s have made various calls to embolden scientific writing that would establish the concepts and good methodological approaches on climate vulnerability [1–3]. As a result, thousands of citable papers have been published in various reputable international journals (including *Environment, Development and Sustainability*) as responses to these calls [4]. However, due to increased vulnerability coupled with climate challenges in most developing countries, there have been increasing needs to establish more studies that give empirical evidences of the current climatic situation [4–6]. This aims to

come up with tangible and scientific information relevant for discussion in various national and international dialogs to shape the future prospects. This is a basis for the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to convene a call for papers to elicit rigorous climatic finding in most developing countries especially the sub-Saharan Africa which is the most vulnerable region on Earth to climate change impacts [4].

Although the whole sub-Saharan Africa experiences unprecedented impacts of climate change, some regions face the worst compared to others [5–7]. Among the regions are Eastern Africa and the Horn of Africa [8, 9]. According to FAOSTAT [10], the Eastern African economy is highly dependent on agriculture, which is dominated by traditional rain-fed small-scale production, and thus, any further erratic weather tends to underpin crop failure in the region.

On the other hand, excessive droughts have ruthlessly affected animal husbandry in the region, and much of this effect happens in the already stressed areas like Central Tanzania, Northeastern Kenya, and the driest parts of the Horn of Africa. The vulnerability of the developing countries has been coupled by lack of strong institutions to deal with calamities and environmental disasters (**Table 1**). This has even increased the level of pollution and degradation as a search of alternative livelihoods. The Conference of the Parties (COP) on climate change, i.e., COP15 (Copenhagen in 2009), COP16 (Cancun in 2010), COP17 (Durban in 2011), COP18 (Doha in 2012), COP19 (Warsaw in 2013), and COP20 (Lima in 2014), realized this problem and, thus, proposes measures to reduce environment problem, more particularly the emission of greenhouse gases.

While various climate models from individual authors and the recent IPCC reports have confirmed that global climate change is real and that it is occurring more rapidly [4], there has been a need to establish empirical evidences that indicate the level of vulnerability and adaption especially in developing countries. This is particularly important as it is recognizable that over 66% of the global population is starving, whereas most of this population is in developing countries especially sub-Saharan Africa [3]. Thus, the understanding of actual climate scenarios in the region will inform the discussion for coping and mitigating the climate impacts.

As a response to the call of the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC regarding climate change [4], this paper attempts to discuss the causes, vulnerability, and adaptation and mitigation measures that exist in Eastern Africa in order to unveil the real climatic situation to various stakeholders at both local and global levels. This will enable climate practitioners to intensify the curbing of the top greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane gas (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and


**37**

**Figure 1.**

*Land use map of the study area. Source: [21].*

*A Novel Assessment of the Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation of Climate Change in Eastern…*

chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) through proper mitigation strategies for the sustainability of the planet [3]. Similarly, at the local level, the improved understanding among the farmers on the influence of climate on agricultural production is desirable for coping with actual and expected variations in both temperature and precipitation [12]. This will again curb an increasing number of undernourished

Therefore, climate resilience at the local level is potentially optimized by proper adaptation measures coupled by appropriate and affordable mitigation measures. This underpins the effects posed by the temporal changing weather and climate in the region. Thus, proper adaptation measures that mainly focus on the agro-ecosystems are particularly useful to meet the demands of the increasing population in the region rather than using the "slash and burn" practices [13]. Eventually, the majority of the population lack livelihood option due to entitle-

Eastern Africa regions mostly cover Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, and other parts of the Horn of Africa that entail Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Djibouti. This ecological region covers approximately

Burundi and Djibouti. The region has a population of over 200 million. The region is bordered with two big water bodies, the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. Tanzania, Kenya, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia are bordered with the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, while Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda are the landlocked

, where Tanzania is the largest country and the smallest ones are

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86850*

people in the region.

ment failure [14].

**2. Location**

4,000,000 km2

#### **Table 1.**

*Examples of factors that influence vulnerability in the region.*

*A Novel Assessment of the Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation of Climate Change in Eastern… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86850*

chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) through proper mitigation strategies for the sustainability of the planet [3]. Similarly, at the local level, the improved understanding among the farmers on the influence of climate on agricultural production is desirable for coping with actual and expected variations in both temperature and precipitation [12]. This will again curb an increasing number of undernourished people in the region.

Therefore, climate resilience at the local level is potentially optimized by proper adaptation measures coupled by appropriate and affordable mitigation measures. This underpins the effects posed by the temporal changing weather and climate in the region. Thus, proper adaptation measures that mainly focus on the agro-ecosystems are particularly useful to meet the demands of the increasing population in the region rather than using the "slash and burn" practices [13]. Eventually, the majority of the population lack livelihood option due to entitlement failure [14].
