ABSTRACT
Adapting to climate change presents itself as an economic problem because it addresses the bigger problem of allocating scarce resources to attain sustainable development (Chambwera and Stage 2010; Stern 2006). At the community level, adaptation involves different combinations of collective and individual actions. These depend on private household resources or public resources, or both at the same time. The decision to allocate resources for adaptation is based on formal and informal considerations of the value or benefits of the actions undertaken against their costs, i.e. adaptation decisions may be viewed as investments that have direct or indirect benefits now or in the future. For example, when farmers invest in soil and water conservation measures, they anticipate an increase or stabilisation of crop yields in the face of adverse climatic events such as droughts or floods. Similarly, farmers who invest in floating gardens expect to maintain a stable flow of vegetables through all seasons. The extra effort they use, or the additional expenditure they incur, affects their existing livelihood pursuits. For example, the extra labour put into soil and water conservation or constructing floating gardens could have been used to earn an income somewhere or for leisure. The same applies to community adaptation activities such as planting trees in degraded catchments to reduce erosion and siltation of rivers or dams.
