NL-CGIAR Senior Expert Programme II (Livestock and Climate)

The vulnerability of pastoral households in arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) is strongly affected by weather extremes, which increase due to global warming. Although pastoralism has been an effective strategy to cope with weather variability, land privatization and conflicts have reduced mobility options, while rangeland degradation has reduced the availability of high-quality forage. Accessing sufficient food, fodder, and water to feed households and their livestock is consequently a main challenge. The CGIAR Research Initiative on ‘Livestock and Climate’ aims to enhance the resilience of livestock-dependent communities by addressing their climate-related challenges, while controlling greenhouse gas emissions and resource degradation. The Senior Expert will collaborate with the Initiative to better address the spatial and temporal component of this aim through the effective use of state-of-the-art Earth observation techniques, focussing on ASALs in northern Kenya and following three main pillars. The first addresses current challenges in the effective design of financial instruments (e.g., index insurance), including consistency in long time series of satellite imagery, adverse selection, and insufficient use of landscape ecological variability and livestock mobility in index design. The second pillar aims to improve the collection and utilization of in-situ longitudinal data on rangelands and livestock, by providing processing tools for existing survey efforts and piloting a LoRaWAN-enabled sensor network allowing for automated collection of data on weather, rangeland health, and livestock movement. The third pillar uses time series of high-resolution satellite imagery for 1) monitoring livestock enclosure locations to aid greenhouse gas emission estimates and monitor livestock distribution, and 2) assessing long-term effectiveness of restoration interventions on rangelands. These combined pillars are expected to contribute evidence and fill important gaps regarding the complex livestock–rangeland-climate dynamics and thus help design and monitor solutions for enhancing the resilience of pastoral livelihoods.

Pastoral livelihoods in northern Kenya face severe consequences of weather extremes that intensify with climate change. Efforts to enhance their resilience include financial mechanisms that compensate households when satellite data trigger forage scarcity warnings. However, flaws exist in such triggers that partially relate to insufficient understanding of the precise link between satellite indicators and household effects. Innovative combination of new-generation satellite series and field data collection efforts can address such flaws. With CGIAR’s ‘Livestock and Climate’ Initiative, the Senior Expert will help develop Earth observation solutions to obtain greater insight into the complex dynamics related to climate, rangeland, and livestock.