Living with Drought: Understanding Adaptation Decisions in African Pastoral Communities

From 2020 to 2023, the Horn of Africa faced one of the worst droughts on record, causing acute food insecurity for 23.5 million people and resulting in 13.2 million livestock deaths. Due to climate change, these types of severe droughts are projected to happen more frequently in several regions around the world. Pastoral and agropastoral communities are among the most vulnerable groups to these increased drought impacts. These communities live from livestock breeding and small-scale crop farming, which highly depend on rainfall. Pastoral and agropastoral communities comprise a substantial part of the population in the African drylands, with estimates varying between 50 and 120 million people. However, limited research has been done on the social-economic and socio-psychological factors that are influencing decisions to adapt to increased drought risk in these communities. This PhD dissertation aims to fill this gap by investigating factors driving adaptation behaviour, improving the understanding of the decision-making process, and informing adaptation policy in dryland regions. Household-level climate change adaptation decisions can be examined from various scientific perspectives. Economists often focus on choices under risk and uncertainty, social psychologists emphasise perceptions, attitudes, and norms, and hydrologists study the feedbacks between adaptation decisions and hydrological systems. Researchers often stay within their disciplines, yet a more comprehensive understanding of adaptation can be reached if insights from different fields are combined. In this PhD thesis, I assess insights from behavioural economics and social psychology to enhance our understanding of drought risk adaptation and to bridge the gaps between those two fields. Chapter 2 discusses the most relevant decision-making theories from behavioural economics and social psychology, explores how they can be applied in the context of agricultural drought risk adaptation, and provides a conceptual framework for the integration of these theories in hydrological modelling. Chapters 3 to 5 use household survey data to empirically assess adaptation decisions in (agro-)pastoral communities. The case study area is Isiolo County, which is located in the drylands of Kenya. Chapter 3 empirically investigates the factors driving adaptation decisions by assessing four established decision-making theories: expected utility theory (EUT), rank-dependent utility theory (RDU), protection motivation theory (PMT), and theory of planned behaviour (PMT). Key factors influencing adaptation decisions include risk and time preferences, perceived self-efficacy, perceived efficacy of measures, experience with adaptation and adaptation by family and friends. The type of adaptation measures implemented is also influenced by, among others, gender, education level, access to financial resources, and access to government support or aid. Chapter 4 delves deeper into the risk attitudes of these communities using an economic field experiment, framed as farming decisions under drought-risk scenarios. The chapter suggests that policies promoting anticipatory risk-reducing behaviour should emphasise the effectiveness of individual actions, increase awareness of the problem, and reduce reliance on emergency assistance. Finally, Chapter 5 presents results from a discrete choice experiment identifying preferences for four types of drought and adaptation support: water supply, emergency livestock fodder, adaptation subsidies, and adaptation training. The findings show that households in pastoral and agropastoral communities are willing to pay for both adaptation and emergency support, with clear heterogeneity in preferences for support related to behavioural factors. This PhD dissertation provides several policy recommendations. It highlights the importance of targeted adaptation policies for pastoral and agropastoral communities in African drylands, emphasising the need to consider individual and household-specific factors such as risk attitudes, perceived adaptation efficacy, perceived self-efficacy and financial constraints. Effective policies should enhance knowledge and familiarity about adaptation measures and prioritize basic needs for households facing high drought risk. Training and information dissemination are crucial, particularly for those less confident in their ability to adapt.