Weaving scientific and local knowledge on climate change impacts in coastal Kenya, Western Indian Ocean

Abstract

Climate change poses severe threats to coastal social-ecological systems (SES) worldwide. Recent calls recognize the importance of including Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) in research on climate change impacts. Yet studies that have attempted to weave ILK and scientific knowledge have seldom considered the gendered nature of climate change impacts. Building on the literature on gender and climate change and knowledge pluralism, this study contributes to addressing this research gap by exploring local knowledge on climate change impacts and its relation to scientific knowledge through a gendered approach and focusing on the Western Indian Ocean region, and more specifically on Kenya. We adopted a mixed methodology combining qualitative and quantitative approaches. We found evidence of pronounced climate change impacts on coastal SES both in the scientific literature and in local reports. Our findings highlight that there is an extensive overlap between information derived from scientific and local knowledge systems. Importantly, our study revealed reports of change that were only provided by SSF communities, namely changes in coastal dynamics, a decrease in rainfall, and a decrease in the abundance of green algae. Although we found gendered variations in changes reported by SSF communities, gendered differences of climate change impacts on SSF were not detected in the reviewed literature. Overall, our results suggest that knowledge cross-fertilization generates a holistic, relational, and place-based view of climate change impacts, which may support sound and gender-inclusive adaptive policies. We conclude by suggesting key policy recommendations for climate adaptation and risk management