IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ragrxx/v51y2012i4p41-62.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rural livelihood diversification: A household adaptive strategy against flood variability in the Okavango Delta, Botswana

Author

Listed:
  • M.R. Motsholapheko
  • D.L. Kgathi
  • C. Vanderpost

Abstract

This paper assesses the role of livelihood diversification in household adaptation to flood variability in the Okavango Delta, and locates it within the global discourse on adaptation to climate variability and change in developing countries. The contribution of livelihood activities to household income, level of livelihood diversity and the relationship between livelihood diversification and adaptation to flood variability was determined. Data from a survey of 623 households in five villages, focus group discussions and key informant interviews confirmed livelihood diversification as an important strategy for household adaptation to flood variability in the Delta. However, the household income portfolio was dominated by public transfers, underscoring the weak socio-economic status of the households and the effects of multiple shocks over and above flood variability. The study concludes that livelihood diversification and other household adaptive strategies may be sufficient for current flood variations, but may be inadequate for dealing with global climate variability and change in future.

Suggested Citation

  • M.R. Motsholapheko & D.L. Kgathi & C. Vanderpost, 2012. "Rural livelihood diversification: A household adaptive strategy against flood variability in the Okavango Delta, Botswana," Agrekon, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(4), pages 41-62, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ragrxx:v:51:y:2012:i:4:p:41-62
    DOI: 10.1080/03031853.2012.741204
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03031853.2012.741204
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/03031853.2012.741204?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ellis, Frank, 2000. "Rural Livelihoods and Diversity in Developing Countries," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198296966.
    2. Ralitza Dimova & Kunal Sen, 2010. "Is household income diversification a means of survival or a means of accumulation? Panel data evidence from Tanzania," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 12210, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    3. Frank Ellis, 2000. "The Determinants of Rural Livelihood Diversification in Developing Countries," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 289-302, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Robson Mandishekwa & Enard Mutenheri, 2021. "The economic activities among mining-induced displacees in Arda Transau, Zimbabwe," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 34(1), pages 51-70, April.
    2. Ashfaq Ahmad Shah & Jingzhong Ye & Muhammad Abid & Jahangir Khan & Syed Muhammad Amir, 2018. "Flood hazards: household vulnerability and resilience in disaster-prone districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 93(1), pages 147-165, August.
    3. Ali Jamshed & Joern Birkmann & Daniel Feldmeyer & Irfan Ahmad Rana, 2020. "A Conceptual Framework to Understand the Dynamics of Rural–Urban Linkages for Rural Flood Vulnerability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-25, April.
    4. Dilshad Ahmad & Muhammad Afzal, 2019. "Household vulnerability and resilience in flood hazards from disaster-prone areas of Punjab, Pakistan," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 99(1), pages 337-354, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nazish KANWAL & Muhammad Ammad KHAN & Zhihao ZHENG, 2016. "Analyzing the determinants of non-farm income diversification of farm households in Peshawar district of Pakistan," Timisoara Journal of Economics and Business, West University of Timisoara, Romania, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, vol. 9(1), pages 33-48, June.
    2. Asfaw, Solomon & McCarthy, Nancy & Paolantonio, Adriana & Cavatassi, Romina & Amare, Mulubrhan & Lipper, Leslie, 2015. "Diversification, Climate Risk and Vulnerability to Poverty: Evidence from Rural Malawi," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 230216, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    3. Md.Salamun Rashidin & Sara Javed & Bin Liu & Wang Jian, 2020. "Ramifications of Households’ Nonfarm Income on Agricultural Productivity: Evidence From a Rural Area of Pakistan," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(1), pages 21582440209, January.
    4. Tshikala, Sam Kaninda & Fonsah, Esendugue Greg, 2018. "Analysis Of The Impact Of Migrations And Remittances On Income Diversification In Rural Africa: A Case Study Of Kenya," 2018 Annual Meeting, February 2-6, 2018, Jacksonville, Florida 266703, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    5. Asfaw, Solomon & Savastano, Sara, 2015. "Topic: Building Resilience to Climate Change Through Social Protection and Climate-Smart Agriculture: Synergies and Trade-offs," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 210963, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    6. Bekele Gebisa Etea & Deyi Zhou & Kidane Assefa Abebe & Dessalegn Anshiso Sedebo, 2020. "Is income diversification a means of survival or accumulation? Evidence from rural and semi-urban households in Ethiopia," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(6), pages 5751-5769, August.
    7. Gamel Abdul-Nasser Salifu, 2019. "The Political Economy Dynamics of Rural Household Income Diversification: A Review of the International Literature," Research in World Economy, Research in World Economy, Sciedu Press, vol. 10(3), pages 273-290, December.
    8. Rao, Nitya, 2017. "Assets, Agency and Legitimacy: Towards a Relational Understanding of Gender Equality Policy and Practice," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 43-54.
    9. Jan Fałkowski & Maciej Jakubowski & Paweł Strawiński, 2014. "Returns from income strategies in rural Poland," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 22(1), pages 139-178, January.
    10. Food Security and Agricultural Projects Analysis Service (ESAF), 2004. "Food insecurity and vulnerability in Viet Nam: Profiles of four vulnerable groups," ESA Working Papers 23798, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Agricultural Development Economics Division (ESA).
    11. Dolores Koenig, 2024. "Evaluating well‐being after compulsory resettlement: Livelihoods, standards of living, and well‐being in Manantali, Mali," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(2), pages 210-220, June.
    12. Hendrawan, Dienda C P & Musshoff, Oliver, 2022. "Oil Palm Smallholder Farmers' Livelihood Resilience and Decision Making in Replanting," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322441, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    13. Jon D. Unruh, 2008. "Toward sustainable livelihoods after war: Reconstituting rural land tenure systems," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 32(2), pages 103-115, May.
    14. Yen H. T. Nguyen & Tuyen Q. Tran & Dung T. Hoang & Thu M. T. Tran & Trung T. Nguyen, 2023. "Land quality, income, and poverty among rural households in the North Central Region, Vietnam," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(2), pages 150-172, June.
    15. Walelign,Solomon Zena & Wang Sonne,Soazic Elise & Seshan,Ganesh Kumar, 2022. "Livelihood Impacts of Refugees on Host Communities : Evidence from Ethiopia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10044, The World Bank.
    16. Porro, Roberto & Lopez-Feldman, Alejandro & Vela-Alvarado, Jorge W., 2015. "Forest use and agriculture in Ucayali, Peru: Livelihood strategies, poverty and wealth in an Amazon frontier," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 47-56.
    17. Jung, Suhyun & Hajjar, Reem, 2023. "The livelihood impacts of transnational aid for climate change mitigation: Evidence from Ghana," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    18. Anwar Kurniadi & IDK Widana & Christine Sri Marnani, 2023. "Mangrove Forest Development as Sustainable Vegetation Disaster Mitigation against Coastal Abrasion and Rob Floods in Supporting Regional Resilience in Bekasi Regency," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 39(1), pages 440-451, January.
    19. Yohannes Teshome & Kaba Urgessa & Anouska Ann Kinahan & Hailu Belay & Sisay Assefa, 2018. "An Assessment of Local Community Livelihood Benefits as a result of Bale Mountains National Park, Southeast Ethiopia," International Journal of Environmental Sciences & Natural Resources, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 15(5), pages 133-140, December.
    20. H.M. Tuihedur Rahman & Gordon M. Hickey, 2020. "An Analytical Framework for Assessing Context-Specific Rural Livelihood Vulnerability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-26, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:ragrxx:v:51:y:2012:i:4:p:41-62. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/ragr20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.