Kenya is located in the Greater Horn of Africa region, which is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. More than 80% of the country’s landmass is arid and semi-arid land (ASAL) with poor infrastructure, and other developmental challenges. Climate hazards have caused considerable losses across the country’s different sectors over the years. The main climate hazards include droughts and floods which cause economic losses estimated at 3% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Thus, livelihoods and economic activities are highly vulnerable to climatic fluctuations. (NDC, 2016)
This section provides a summary of key natural hazards and their associated socioeconomic impacts in a given country. And it allows quick evaluation of most vulnerable areas through the spatial comparison of natural hazard data with development data, thereby identifying exposed livelihoods and natural systems.
The charts provide overview of the most frequent natural disaster in a given country and understand the impacts of those disasters on human populations.
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Climate change is now recognized to have a significant impact on disaster management efforts and pose a significant threat to the efforts to meet the growing needs of the most vulnerable populations. The demands of disaster risk management are such that concise, clear, and reliable information is crucial. The information presented here offers insight into the frequency, impact and occurrence of natural hazards. Source (PDF)
Understanding natural hazard occurrence as well as historical climate conditions, in relation to development contexts, is critical to understanding a country’s historical vulnerability. This tool allows the visualization of different natural hazards or historical climate conditions with socio-economic and development datasets. Select the Development Context and either a Natural Hazard or Climate Condition and overlay horizontally by sliding the toggle left or right to gain a broader sense of historically vulnerable areas.
Data presented under Historical Climate Conditions are reanalysis products derived from ERA5-Land data. ERA5-Land is a global land-surface dataset at 9 km resolution, consistent with atmospheric data from the ERA5 reanalysis from 1950 onward. Climate reanalyses combine past observations with models to generate consistent time series of multiple climate variables. They provide a comprehensive description of the observed climate as it has evolved during recent decades, on 3D grids at sub-daily intervals.
This data has been collected, aggregated and processed by the Climate Resilience Cluster of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Earth Observation for Sustainable Development (EO4SD) initiative.
- The arid and semi-arid lands are also more prone to harsh weather conditions, making the communities within this region vulnerable to natural hazards, mainly droughts.
- Seasonal floods may affect various parts of the country especially along the flood plains in the Lake Victoria basin and the Tana River.
- Landslides and mudslides occur during the long rainy season from March to May, which usually affects the western Nyanza and north Rift Valley provinces.
More information on natural hazards can be found at ThinkHazard.
- Kenya’s infrastructure is poor with impassable roads, poor telecommunication lines, and inaccessible regions that hamper the transportation of food either for commercial purposes or relief aid.
- Landslides and mudslides are experienced during the long rainy season from March to May, which usually affects the western Nyanza and north Rift Valley provinces. However, the most vulnerable areas are Murang’a district in the central province, Kirinyaga, Nyeri, parts of Meru around the Mount Kenya region, Kisii and Mombasa Island.
- The country’s inland areas are largely arid, with two-thirds of the country receiving less than 500 mm of rainfall per year, limiting the potential for agriculture.