Probing Adaptive Farm-Based Decision-Making : Assessing Micro-Catchment Practices towards Smart Agricultural Intensification within Muooni Sub-Catchment , Kenya

Riparian areas provide many critical ecosystem functions, including reducing nutrients and sediments from surface runoff, reducing erosion, and providing shade and organic matter to stream ecosystems. The Muoonimicro-catchment area is densely settled and degraded as a result of land sub-divisions arising from the ever increasing population. Land fragmentation is very common in the area and therefore, conserving the riparian vegetation is important in the management of the Muooni dam as a source of water for a multiplicity of uses. In this paper we examined the conservation practices of the riparian vegetation in the Muooni dam microcatchment with in-depth interviews, transect walks and field observation techniques and noted that diverse land use practices are seriously affecting the quality of the riparian vegetation and the quality of the dam by increasing sediment loading within the dam. There are pockets of effort by the local farmers in preventing soil erosion in their farms along Muooni dam. However, strengthening the connection between government initiatives and individual famer initiatives is more likely to have a greater outcome. It is therefore deemed imperative for the local authorities to initiate farmer group activities taking the set-up of innovation platforms to conserve the riparian land and vegetation. 1. Background of the Study Riparian areas provide many critical ecosystem functions, including reducing nutrients and sediments from surface runoff, reducing erosion, and providing shade and organic matter to stream ecosystems (Jaetzold et al., 2007 and FAO, 2011). The destruction of riparian vegetation along rivers is increasingly leading to soil erosion on the slopes of microcatchments and sediment loading in river dams. Kenya among other developing countries is not an exception. Several rivers, streams and dams are affected by humaninduced drivers and have resulted into sediment loading. The study carried out by (Jaetzold et al., 2007) in Eastern Kenya, shows that land-use practices are increasing every day, and soil erosion is becoming the associated problem. At the Muooni dam -catchment in Machakhos County-Kenya, conservation of the riparian vegetation has been given relatively less attention. As such, the riparian vegetation is highly disturbed through cattle grazing, bush fires upstream, tree cutting for timber production, sand harvesting in the downstream of the dam, poor agricultural practices (clearing and bush fires for farm preparations), cutting of the virgin vegetation as animal fodder in the catchment. This has become threatening story in water resources sustainability and calling for the building of local adaptation models as a means of informing forward-thinking decision making regarding watershed sustainability in Kenya.The IPCC AR5 is quite certain that differences in vulnerability and exposure arise from non-climatic factors. However, the response to vulnerability and exposure is differentiated by multidimensional inequalities often produced by uneven development processes. These differences shape differential risks from climate change. People who are socially, economically, culturally, politically, institutionally, or otherwise marginalized are especially vulnerable to climate change and also to some adaptation and mitigation responses (IPCC, 2007;FAO, 2011; IPCC, 2014). Therefore, vulnerability assessments require that researchers begin with an assessment of current exposures, sensitivities and current adaptive capacity, employing ethnographic in-community methods (including such tools as farm-based observation and focus groups), as well as insights from local and regional decision-makers, resource managers, scientists, published and unpublished literature, and other available sources of information. The aim of such analysis is to identify and document the conditions or risks (current and past exposures and sensitivities) that people have to deal with, and how they deal with these, including the factors and processes that constrain their choices (current and past adaptive capacity) (Pettengell, 2010). Studies suggest that there are multiple scopes and timings for adaptive interventions (for example, Smit et al., 2000; UN-Habitat, 2005; Smit and Wandel, 2006; UNFCCC, 2007; Silva Villanueva, 2011). Adaptive capacity assessment helps determine the capacity of human systems in order to identify and address weaknesses in planning initiatives, examine development initiatives through a climate change lens or as a component of climate vulnerability assessment (described separately as a different but related approach). The Local Adaptive Capacity (LAC) framework developed by the African Climate Change Resilience Alliance (ACCRA) makes clear that on a local level, rather than looking at what a community has, LAC analyses what the community does and how it does it. These are important technical Paper ID: 13011601 1020 International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR) ISSN (Online): 2319-7064 Index Copernicus Value (2013): 6.14 | Impact Factor (2014): 5.611 Volume 5 Issue 1, January 2016