Climate Change Vulnerability in Rwanda, East Africa

Abstract

This study aims to spatially assess the flood vulnerability then suggests appropriate vulnerability lessening and adaptation mechanisms in Rwanda. Six vulnerability factors namely the rainfall and temperature, total population, access to communication tools, poverty level and number of schools were analyzed. The Weighting Linear Combination (WLC) method in ArcGIS is used to analyze these factors and spread the resulting flood vulnerability countrywide. The results showed high flood vulnerability within the northern, western and southern provinces and Kigali city of Rwanda. This vulnerability is likely to rise due to the noticed low possession of communication tools and education delivery, which could help to enhance the risk awareness and preparedness among the vulnerable communities. The results of this study can help policy makers to understand the required community's vulnerability lessening measures and ensure spread of mitigation and adaptation policies as per vulnerability extent within Rwanda. Contribution/Originality: The paper primary contribution is finding that climate change risk, mainly the flooding are gradually causing severe losses and damages in Rwanda. Thus, the mapped flood vulnerability can be useful to policy makers to better recognize the required vulnerability lessening policies based on the actual circumstances. 1. INTRODUCTION Under climate change, it is predicted that the temperature and precipitation will rise by about 2 o C, and 1 to 2%, respectively, in the next decades, and this consequently, will cause wet places to become much wetter and dry places will be much drier (Fosu-Mensah et al., 2012; Dami et al., 2017). The changing climate risks such as droughts, Tsunamis, water borne diseases, heatwaves, storm winds, floods, landslides, etc., caused by rainfall and temperature patterns are severely causing immense losses among the communities. The poor and vulnerable people are largely affected primarily due to lack of risk awareness, adaptation and financial capabilities (Hirabayashi et al., 2013; Oruonye and Ahmed, 2017; Ullah et al., 2018).Within the East Africa, where Rwanda is located, more than 90 percent of the recorded natural disasters are hydro-meteorological caused by climate change causing serve losses

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