Perceived climate change impacts and adaptation responses in ten African mountain regions

Introduction

Temperature changes are more rapid in mountain environments than at lower elevations, changes which negatively affect not only glaciers and water budgets, but also crop yields, livestock and human diseases. African mountain regions, especially across East Africa, have also observed an increase in extreme weather events (floods and droughts), which have had severe social, ecological and economic impacts. In African mountain regions, as in other regions with complex topography, considerable uncertainty exists about the local consequences of ongoing climate change, because of the limited spatial resolution of global or regional climate models. For such regions, field observations from subsistence-oriented communities can help to not only document the multiple fine-scale environmental consequences of climate change, including those relevant to local communities, but also provide the insights needed to design effective adaptation responses.

This study explores both climate change impacts as perceived by local subsistence-oriented communities, and their adaptation responses, in ten African mountain regions located in Central and East Africa. It provides a list of potential: (1) climatic changes observed, (2) impacts in the biophysical domain and (3) adaptation responses; as well as insights on the (1) main constraints and opportunities for adaptation adapting the IPCC guidelines, and (2) if adaptation was incremental or transformational.

This article is an abridged version of the original text “Perceived climate change impacts and adaptation responses in ten African mountain regions” published in Nature Climate Change, 15, under the CC BY 4.0 license in January 2025 © Cuni-Sanchez et al. Please note that references have been removed. For more detail, full references, and to quote text please use the paper available for download on the right.

Methodology

Ten study sites were selected in mountain regions (both mountains and highlands) covering a wide range of ecological contexts (for example, different elevation or annual rainfall), socioeconomic contexts (for example, different livelihood strategy or market access) and political contexts (different countries). In each study site, four villages located at different elevations were selected. 

In each village, exploratory focus group discussions were conducted with four or five elders. These focus group discussions were used to adapt a common semistructured questionnaire to each study context and to build trust among community members. The common (for all ten sites) semistructured questionnaire included a long list of potential (1) climatic changes observed, (2) impacts in the biophysical domain and (3) adaptation responses. Using the household questionnaires, 1,500 farmers across ten African mountain regions were interviewed.

To investigate differences across study sites, the main unit of analysis was percentage of respondents per study site. Additionally, throughout the 18 month research project, bimonthly webinars were organized with all co-authors (including at least one with long-term expertise in each site), to share findings and reflections across study sites.

For more information, please refer to pages 162-163 of the study.

Key findings

Perceived climate change impacts

Seven climate change-related impacts were reported by numerous respondents to the household questionnaires in nearly all (9 out of 10) sites, including reduced stream flow, reduced crop yields and cow milk production, increased soil erosion, increased crop and livestock diseases and reduced human health. An increase in landslides was reported in five sites, and lower coffee yields were also reported in each of the five coffee-growing sites studied.

These impacts were mostly related to nine different climatic changes, which were reported by most respondents in nearly all (9 out of 10) sites, including increased temperatures, reduced fog, changes in rainfall amount and distribution, an increase in extreme droughts, fewer hailstorms and increased wind strength during the rainy season. An increase in extreme floods and less frost, were also cited by respondents in seven sites.

Overall, the study highlights that mountain farmers in Africa are faced with multiple impacts simultaneously, and that most of these impacts are widespread across mountain regions.

Local adaptation responses

Eight on-farm and one off-farm adaptation responses were reported by most respondents to the household questionnaires in nearly all (9 of 10) sites, including changing planting dates, sowing seeds twice if they die, changing to improved crop varieties, increasing use of soil conservation techniques, irrigation, fertilizer, pesticide and veterinary care; and diversifying into off-farm labour. With regard to coffee, changing to improved varieties, increasing use of pesticides or shade of coffee plants were reported in most of the five coffee-growing sites studied. 

Seven other on-farm and six other off-farm adaptation responses were also reported by respondents, some of which were only cited in one study site: for example, increasing farm size in Udzungwa (Tanzania), diversifying into timber trade in Mt Kenya or diversifying into mining in Itombwe (Democratic Republic of the Congo).

Despite high climate change literacy (defined as a combination of having heard of the concept of climate change and the knowledge and acceptance of its anthropogenic cause), most (>80%) respondents in seven sites used only indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) to determine when to sow their seeds. However, ILK will become less useful to farmers in the future, as climatic patterns such as rainfall distribution continues to change from the patterns observed in the past and shared from one generation to the next.

There was no significant overall relationship between the proportion of climatic changes observed and the proportion of adaptation responses enacted. Household wealth was a stronger driver of adaptation. Overall, poorer households performed fewer adaptation actions than average-wealth ones, while richer households tended to perform more actions than average-wealth ones.

Overall, results show that African mountain farmers respond to climate change impacts by using multiple adaptation responses, most of which focus on intensifying farming practices. Additionally, most adaptation responses reported were behavioural rather than technological, infrastructural or ecosystem-based, as shown for mountain regions elsewhere.

Constraints and opportunities

Through a reflective and analytical process involving all co-authors (including at least one with long-term expertise in each site), together with information from focus group discussions and the IPCC list of constraints and opportunities for adaptation, physical (for example, access to land) and economic (for example, access to credit) aspects were identified as the main constraints to adaptation in most sites, with governance aspects and knowledge, awareness and technology, also cited in some sites. Additionally, the study found that some aspects considered as constraints in some sites could be considered opportunities in others (for example, water for irrigation). 

The opportunities most relevant across sites were found to be awareness of climate change impacts and mobile phone communication, factors widely known to be key to smallholder farmers’ climate change adaptation. Presence of external actors and entrepreneurial skills were also identified as opportunities in several sites. Although smallholder farmers tend to be risk averse, which leads to limited investment and adoption of new technologies, the results show that in some sites (with greater market integration and farmers’ access to education), entrepreneurship is not rare.

Incremental rather than transformational adaptation

After applying the framework, co-authors considered that in all sites adaptation was more incremental than transformational, but also that some sites were slightly more transformational than others. Some of the ‘towards transformational’ attributes were shared across sites (for example, knowledge exchange among actors, strong social capital, farmers engaged in experimenting), but not all (for example, change agents). These differences in ‘towards transformational’ attributes, highlight that there are multiple pathways towards transformation processes.

Overall, the study’s findings on mountain regions are aligned with previous work on the African lowlands showing that farmers’ adaptation in the continent is still mostly incremental; and with the observation that most adaptation in mountain regions across the world is incremental in nature.

Recommendations

The study identified three key priorities for moving forward farmers’ climate change adaptation in mountain regions in Africa and beyond:

1. Improve access to credit, technical skills and markets: It is widely acknowledged that these are widespread constraints to smallholder farmers’ adaptation to climate change. The study emphasizes that there are multiple pathways to addressing these issues, and innovative solutions could comprise multiple actors, such as the private sector or some community members as shown by ‘elite farmers’ in Mt Kenya in this study, which facilitated access to both new skills and technologies. Access to markets is not just related to physical infrastructure (for example, roads), but also awareness of market prices and types of markets and cultural values (for example, symbolic value of some crops or animals).
2. Increase knowledge exchange among actors: Knowledge exchange among actors (for example, local farmers and extension services) benefits the transformational adaptation process, but this is still not the norm in most mountain contexts. Often, a new technology is presented as a one-of (for example, seeds from improved crop varieties are distributed) and the farmer has no opportunity to ask questions once he/she tries the new technology and challenges arise (as our study respondents highlighted). Apart from supporting farmers throughout the ‘new technology’ learning process, farmers can also help design adaptation responses better adapted to their cultural values and contexts.
3. Consider national policies and governance: In Rwanda, agricultural intensification policies have raised crop yields, and the conventionally measured poverty rates have fallen, but these policies appear to be exacerbating rural landlessness, inequality and food insecurity, particularly for the poorest households. While these policies directly promote some adaptation responses such as improved crop varieties, they also indirectly promote others (for example, diversifying into vegetable farming), as our results have shown. Thus, the multiple effects of such national policies should be considered at the local scale, by taking into account that farmers are not a homogeneous group, particularly in the culturally diverse mountain regions. Concerning governance, special attention should be paid to the nuanced effects of violent conflicts. There are multiple types of violent conflicts, such as civil wars, sectarian, territorial disputes, political instability or transitional terrorism, which can affect farmers adaptation responses differently. More research attention and external support should be given to conflict-affected regions, particularly in mountain regions.

Explore the recommendations in more detail in Box 1 on p.159.

Suggested citation

Cuni-Sanchez, A., Aneseyee, A.B., Baderha, G.K.R. et al. Perceived climate change impacts and adaptation responses in ten African mountain regions. Nat. Clim. Chang. 15, 153–161 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02221-w