Effect of Ecosystem based adaptation interventions on micro-climate variability and improvement of crop yields in Mushongi Cell, Mpanga Sector, KIREHE District, Rwanda

Abstract

The climate variability and change in Rwanda caused different issues like drought and floods as results of heavy precipitation and hot days. These issues affect negatively agricultural production leading to bad living condition. Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) is a good solution to help human being to adapt to the unpleasant effects of climate variability and change. This Study on Effect of EbA interventions on climate variability and improvement of crop yields was conducted in Mushongi cell of Mpanga Sector, Kirehe District, Rwanda. It was conducted with three objectives. (i) To assess the impacts of EbA intervention on land use practices (forestry, agroforestry and crop land) (ii) To analyze the effects of EbA intervention on micro-climate variability (iii) To investigate the effect of EbA intervention on crop production.Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to achieve the objective of research. A survey questionnaire with 220 respondents and 5 interviews were conducted. Remote sensing and GIS were also used to analyze land use change detection using satellite images and supervised classification techniques. The maps of land use were compared using GIS for land use change detection. SPSS software was used to analyze data from survey whereas NVIVO was used to analyze the data from interview. The results showed that the implementation of EbA project in the study area displayed a positive effect on climate variability mitigation and increase crop yield as well as land use change. About 92.3 % of respondents said that their land was used for agricultural (cropping) production whereas 100% of respondents highlighted that after implementation of EbA, their lands are used for agroforestry. EbA activities area played important role including fuelwood and stakes (97.7%) the the soil erosion control (96.8%); the planted trees in EbA protect plants against heavy wind (90.0%), generated income for farmers (88.6%), increased soil fertility through recycling of nutrient from the deeper soil with (85.5%). After EbA, crops were growing well as confirmed by 98.6% of respondents, rainfall was sufficient for 97.7% of respondents and coming on regular basis 91.4% of respondents). The yield of crops increased as confirmed by respondents. Around 87.7% of respondents said that the maize increased whereas 86.8% of respondents confirmed that the yield of beans was increased.This is study found that EbA approach improved adaptation of people to climate variability effects because farmers get different benefits both socio-economic and environmental. This study also recommends to use EbA approach to help people to mitigate the impacts of climate variability but also to investigate different factor that help crops to grow well in agroforestry system.