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Climate change exacerbates ecosystem degradation in Sahel where rural communities are highly dependent on natural resources and ecosystem services for their livelihoods. In order cope with the adverse effects of climate change by developing climate adaptation strategies, there has been a need to understand how communities perceive the change or variability in their local climate and how this change could affect their livelihood. This paper aims to examined rural communities' perceptions about climate change in the commune of Chetimari located in the region of Diffa, southeastern Niger. It investigated particularly: 1) how communities' perceptions of climate change? 2) What are the impacts of climate change on the livelihood of communities? And 3) What do elements and options to detect abrupt change points in annual precipitations and both annual maximum and minimum temperature? Survey data were collected from October to November 2018 from 101 households (15% of the total households in the study area) in three villages. Multiple Issaharou-Matchi et al.; IJECC, 9(12): 789-800, 2019; Article no.IJECC.2019.064 790 correspondence Analysis (MCA) and Factorial Correspondence Analysis (FCA) were performed with XLSTAT to analyzed data from survey. Meteorological data including Monthly precipitation from 1981 to 2017, and Monthly temperatures (maximum, minimum) from 1986 to 2017 of the Diffa meteorological station were analyzed using R to perform the Man Kendal trend test and the Pettit test for detection of abrupt changes in the series. Results showed that community perceptions on temperature increase (not for precipitation) trends as indicators of climate change are in agreement with meteorologically observed trends. The findings showed that people in this zone are aware of climate change that they see as increase in maximum and minimum temperature, decrease in rainfall, frequency of extreme events (drought and flood), dry spells, decrease in number of rainy days, strong winds etc…Results revealed the most significant impacts of climate change affecting the livelihood of rural communities in this area. These are higher risk of crop damage from drought, farmer and herder conflict frequency, drying up of wells, food shortage/insecurity, silting pools, decline in soil fertility and livestock production, silting pasture areas, frequency of livestock diseases, increased weed and invasive species, livestock mortality. The perception of the climate change and its impacts on the main socioeconomic activities vary from a village to another, according the sexes and age ranges. We conclude that communities are relatively aware about the climate change issue. For a better management of climate-induced risks in the study area we stress the need to improve the awareness of climate change within the rural community by improving the availability and the quality of relevant climate information. Original Research Article

In the sahelian zone where 80% of the populations rely on rainfed-agricultural activities for their livelihood, drought episodes had significant socio-economics and ecological impacts. In recent decades, there has been an increase in the intensity, frequency and severity of drought occurrence mainly attributed to climate change. Thus, the main objectives of this study were: i) to understand drought multi-scale patterns and trend; ii) to assess drought duration, frequency and temporal extent over Mainé-soroa and Diffa located in the lake chad basin. To achieve these objectives standardized precipitation index (SPI) and the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) at 1, 3, 6, 9, 12 and 24-month timescales were employed for the stations of Mainé-soroa and Diffa. Stations’ monthly rainfall, air minimum and maximum temperature spanning 1950-2009 and 1988-2017 respectively for Mainé-soroa and Diffa were used for the analysis. The Mann–kendall trend test was performed and revealed negative SPEI and SPI trends in the station of Mainé-soroa.  Results indicate a significant negative SPI-12 and SPI-24 trend (p-value < 0.05), while no trend was detected in the rest of the time-scale series. The absolute value of declining trend was gradually increasing when SPEI was calculated with more lagged months.  Meanwhile, at the Diffa station both SPEI and SPI showed positive trends. The pettitt's t-test on the SPEI series indicated particularly 1968 as the change point detected for three time scales including spei-9, SPEI-12, and SPEI-24. Drought frequency generally increased in Mainé-soroa over the period of 1950–2009. SPEI appear to be the most powerful tool of monitoring drought in semi-arid environment in the context of climate change. To build resilience to drought and cope with its effects in the area we stress the importance of the establishment of early risk identification and advices framework at local level such study should be extended to lake chad basin.