Research Publications

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Assessing Climate Variability Adaptation and Coping Strategies Among Rural Households in Kenya.
(Journal of Water Sciences & Environment Technologies, 2018) Musyimi, Peter Kinyae; Nduru, Gilbert M; Huho, Julius M; Opiyo, Francis E
The aim of this study is to assess the adopted water scarcity adaptation and coping strategies of rural households to climate variability. It also identifies suitable strategies that minimize the impact of climate variability on water sources in arid and semi-arid (ASALs) in Kenya. The study was carried out in Makindu Sub-county, Makueni County, Kenya. Data collection techniques such as questionnaires and in-depth interview with 370 households, key informants interviews were used to assess the adaptation and coping strategies of rural households and identify the most suitable strategies for the study area. Rainfall data was collected from Makindu Meteorological station and used for meteorological drought characteristics analysis. Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was used to analyze drought severity in the study area between 1980 and 2011. SPI was used to quantify precipitation deficit for various time scales. Drought Intensity (DI) was used to determine decadal drought intensities. SPI results showed that 18 years out of 31 with negative SPI values an indication of drought severity occurrence. The year 2005 was the driest in the area with an SPI of -1.76. The study also showed increasing drought intensities from 1990s to 2000s. The study showed that the rural households had adopted varied adaptation and coping strategies to cope with impact of drought extremes on water sources. However, increase in drought characteristics occurrences minimized their resilience and adaptive capacities. The study observed that the strategies employed are unlikely to enable them cope with recent climate change and variability regimes, therefore need for most suitable and viable ones. The study identified viable strategies such as rainwater harvesting and sinking boreholes as long term measures that can enhance rural households’ resilience to climate change extremes in ASALs of Kenya.
Assessing Climate Variability Adaptation and Coping Strategies Among Rural Households in Kenya
(Journal of Water Sciences & Environment Technologies, 2018-08) Nduru, Gilbert M.; Musyimi, Peter Kinyae; Huho, Julius M.; Opiyo, Francis E.
The aim of this study is to assess the adopted water scarcity adaptation and coping strategies of rural households to climate variability. It also identifies suitable strategies that minimize the impact of climate variability on water sources in arid and semi-arid (ASALs) in Kenya. The study was carried out in Makindu Sub-county, Makueni County, Kenya. Data collection techniques such as questionnaires and in-depth interview with 370 households, key informants interviews were used to assess the adaptation and coping strategies of rural households and identify the most suitable strategies for the study area. Rainfall data was collected from Makindu Meteorological station and used for meteorological drought characteristics analysis. Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was used to analyze drought severity in the study area between 1980 and 2011. SPI was used to quantify precipitation deficit for various time scales. Drought Intensity (DI) was used to determine decadal drought intensities. SPI results showed that 18 years out of 31 with negative SPI values an indication of drought severity occurrence. The year 2005 was the driest in the area with an SPI of -1.76. The study also showed increasing drought intensities from 1990s to 2000s. The study showed that the rural households had adopted varied adaptation and coping strategies to cope with impact of drought extremes on water sources. However, increase in drought characteristics occurrences minimized their resilience and adaptive capacities. The study observed that the strategies employed are unlikely to enable them cope with recent climate change and variability regimes, therefore need for most suitable and viable ones. The study identified viable strategies such as rainwater harvesting and sinking boreholes as long term measures that can enhance rural households’ resilience to climate change extremes in ASALs of Kenya.
Transcriptome-based identification of drought responsive genes in the tea plant
(2015) Maritim, T.K.; Wachira, F.N.; Kamunya, S.M.; Mireji, P; Mwendia, C.; Muoki, R.C.; Wamalwa, M.; Stomeo, F.; Martina, K.P.
Tea (Camellia sinensis L. (O) Kuntze) is one of the most widely consumed beverages worldwide. Tea growing areas in Kenya often experience drought periods which cause accumulated soil water deficit. These adversely affect tea production and hence necessitate a need to develop drought-adapted tea cultivars that can withstand the stress challenge. Development of such cultivars can be facilitated by better understanding of genetic mechanisms underlying tolerance of the tea plant to water deficit. Tea plants respond to water deficit through poorly understood molecular processes. The present study was therefore, designed with the objective of identifying genes putatively conferring tolerance in the tea plant. Drought tolerant (TRFCA SFS150) and susceptible (AHP S15/10) tea cultivars, both 18-month old, were each separately exposed to water stress or control conditions of 18% and 34% soil moisture content, respectively, for three months in a randomized complete block (RCB) design with three replicates. Fresh shoots (n = 5) were randomly selected and separately harvested from each treatment and replicate. Total RNA of the shoots were extracted, their mRNA reverse transcribed and sequenced on Roche 454 high-throughput pyrosequencing platform. Overall, 232,853 reads were generated. The reads were quality-filtered, trimmed and assembled into 460 long transcripts (contigs). Contigs were annotated using BLAST searches against similar proteins in the Arabidopsis proteome and blast2go against non-redundant database to determine gene ontologies. Drought-related genes including heat shock proteins (HSP70), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (cat), peroxidase (PoX), calmoduline-like protein (Cam7) and galactinol synthase (Gols4) were induced in plants exposed to drought. Additionally, the expressions of HSP70 and SOD were higher in the drought tolerant relative to the susceptible cultivar under drought conditions. Loci with known functional links to physiological and biochemical features of drought response appear to mediate tolerance to drought in C. sinensis. The loci present potential molecular markers for drought tolerance that can be explored through functional genomics to better understand molecular mechanisms underlying drought tolerance in C. sinensis.

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