Resilience to Climate Change across Agro-ecological Zones in Tigray, Ethiopia

Climate is rapidly changing, and extreme weather events are likely to be more common. This alerts to deal with climate-related shocks and escalate resilience. Yet, research on farm households’ resilience and factors influencing their resilience capacity are limited. Therefore, this study aimed to estimate the resilience index of farm households and evaluate factors influencing resilience capacity to climate change-induced shocks in Tigray, Ethiopia. The climate resilience index was estimated based on resilience capacities using an agro-ecological unit of analysis. Multivariate and Shiny Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis models were applied. The result shows that the average climate resilience index of the farm households is below the minimum threshold, and they are highly vulnerable to climate change-induced shocks. It revealed that male-headed households and farm households residing in midland agro-ecology are relatively more resilient, followed by the highland and lowland agro-ecological zones. The absorptive capacity is highest contributor for better resilience capacity, followed by the adaptive and transformative capacities. Stability and being better off in income, food access, and asset holding are important components for better resilience. However, low access to basic services, limited early warning systems, and inadequate adaptive capacity were profound causes for low resilience capacity. The study suggests that interventions should focus on absorptive capacities to boost the resilience of farm households. Likewise, efforts towards increased resilience should target the least resilient farm households and agro-ecology to realize the climate change resilient food systems.