Impacts of Deforestation on Climate and Implications on Food Production in South West Mau

Abstract

It is increasingly important that forests are very important in sustaining income and rural community livelihoods through food production. It is increasing important for food production assessment in the wake of today’s challenge of climate variability and change. More investigations should be done to assess further on impacts of forest cover change in Mau. Food production cannot be produced in an environmentally degraded environment. Improved Food production and security has been a priority in the countries development agenda. The achievement of national food security in Kenya is a major aim of food production. A food secure country improves community livelihoods, creating employment, reduces food insecurity and increases the country’s GDP. The Study Objectives are to investigate the impacts of deforestation on climate and implications on food production, assess the trend of forest cover change , analyze the trends of observed rainfall and temperature changes, assess forest cover effects on rainfall and temperature changes, determine relationship between Forest cover change, climate and crop production in the area. Data collection was through satellite images which were analyzed using Landsat images for four climate seasons that is 1988, 1998, 2008 and 2018 and comparative study of forest cover changes. Data on climate change trends was acquired from climate data in the area. For questionnaires and interview schedules, SPSS was used for frequencies and cross tabulation for perceptions and excel and correlation used for analyzing temperature and rainfall data. The research indicated a drastic reduction in size of forest in the south West Block from1988 to present due to deforestation, affecting climate change and thus having implications on food production in the area. It was shown from the observations that there is continued warming since the 1980s to date which has led to reduced food production, hence poor food yields. It was observed that forest cover change drastically occurred in the years due to illegal settlements logging and population increase. The rates of forest cover change due to deforestation have been on the rise. This has impacted on climate change causing climate variability and change of weather seasons which has in turn affected food production in the area. From this study the distribution of precipitation and temperature shows temporal and spatial variations, the results shows that the rainfall amounts have been decreased gradually over the catchment and the temperatures have been significantly increasing, the extremes of drought and floods have affected the crop yields and will continue in the future. Rising temperatures due to climate variability and reduced amount of rainfall have led to depicted trends of reduced food production. Increased temperature coupled with reduced precipitation trends have resulted to reduced food production. Climate variables are positively related to food production; hence food production