Climate change adaptation and EIA studies in Kenya

Global warming due to rising levels of green house gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere is one of the most serious environmental concerns in the twenty‐first century. Climate change poses the greatest threat to human civilization today, causing enormous challenges for sustainable development and is perhaps the greatest environmental challenge in the world today (Rahman and Mallick, 2005). One of the generally accepted facts in the world is that the negative impacts of climate change are more likely to affect the poor people in the developing countries and least developed countries more seriously (Annandale, 2001).

The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released in November 2007 presented a grim future with an estimated increase in global surface temperature by 0.6±0.2°C in the twentieth century. However, global climatic models predict that climate change in Kenya will lead to increased temperatures of up to 4°C and cause rainfall variability by up to 20 percent by the year 2100. The two extreme climate events that may adversely affect the many economic sectors are floods and drought in both the humid zones and the arid and semi‐arid areas.

The possible impacts of the impending climatic change are numerous including accelerated melting of glaciers in the polar belts which can significantly raise sea levels which could place many coastal towns and islands in Kenya such as Mombasa, Malindi, Lamu, Kisite and Mada at great risk of elimination through submergence. According to Orindi and Murray (2005) some of the anticipated impacts of climate change in East Africa will include decreased rainfall and rise in increased temperature and evaporation in dry land areas, higher frequency of droughts, severe water shortage, change in planting seasons, reduced forest cover and arable land, increased outbreak of fungal attacks and insect infestations in agriculture due to changes in temperature and humidity, decline in crop yield and biomass production, increased risk of food shortage and famine, increased malaria transmission and national health care burden, and sea level rise within the coastal region. One of the major challenges is to identify appropriate adaptation mechanisms and coping options for the expected impacts of climate change (IPCC, 2001).

A study undertaken by Kabubo‐Mariara and Karanja (2007) indicates that climate change in Kenya will result in a 22 percent loss of production in medium and low potential ecological zones (Zones IV‐VII) and 1 percent production gain in high potential zones (Zones I‐III). Warmer conditions in the highlands might benefit crop production through slightly higher rainfall, longer seasons and more photoradiation. Two key climate change impact scenarios on the ecological zones of Kenya have been constructed. The first assumes that droughts will occur with the most severe impacts in the drylands which dominate the country (<80 percent) and relatively modest impacts in the humid highlands which constitute 20 percent of the country. A more recent study shows that the changes in annual precipitation simulated for Kenya by the 2090s will range from +5 to +48 percent in one scenario, +2 to +30 percent in another and −1 to +19 percent in a third scenario (McSweeney et al., 2010).

According to the National Climate Change Response Strategy (NCCRS) in Kenya, the evidence of climate change in Kenya is unmistakable (GoK, 2010). Evidence of temperature rise is common throughout the country. Rainfalls have become irregular, unpredictable, torrential (GoK, 2010). According to the NCCRS (2010) the Kenyan coast is one of the most vulnerable to sea level rise. For example, it is estimated that about 17 percent of Mombasa or 4,600 ha of land area will be submerged with a sea level rise of only 0.3 m (GoK, 2010). As temperatures rise and precipitation increases beaches could eventually disappear as the sea level rises. According to the strategy, some hotels along the Kenyan coastline have been forced to construct sea barriers to protect their property against increasingly strong sea tides.

The NCCRS predicts that more torrential rains accompanied by floods could destroy roads, bridges, railway lines and other transportation and communication infrastructure. For instance, the damage caused by the eight‐month 1997/1998 El‐Niño rains to the country's transport and telecommunication infrastructure was estimated at US$1 billion (GoK, 2010). It is therefore critical that predictive tools like environmental impact assessment (EIA) are used effectively in order to foresee the possible tragedies of climate change in advance and install appropriate adaptation strategies to minimize negative impacts.

Climate change is likely to exacerbate events such as floods, landslides and sea level rise, which could cause huge damages to development projects especially those on infrastructural constructions thereby resulting to huge socio‐economic loses. This can happen even after such projects have already been subjected to the EIA process if the process does not adequately consider climate change integration (OECD, 2009). It is therefore necessary that EIA should therefore consider the potential resilience, both to the anticipated negative impacts and positive opportunities of climate change on proposed projects in order to enhance sustainable development by ensuring that the EIA process is “adaptive” to climate change (Rahman and Mallick, 2005). However, the big question is whether this important tool for sustainable development has actually been considering this issue effectively. At the moment, no scientific study has been undertaken to audit the existing EIA reports in order to establish whether the country climate change scenarios are usually taken seriously and appropriate recommendations advanced in order to deal with the expected eventualities.

The EIA can be viewed and applied as a valuable tool for ensuring that all the negative impacts of climate change on future development are properly mitigated in order to minimize the disastrous impacts of climate change and reduce loss of human life and property. In the recent past, there has been a steady increase in the application of EIA to development projects in Africa (ECA, 2005). The steady increase in the number of EIA applications received has been attributed to the enactment of EIA legislation, the establishment of environmental management institutions, increase in the level of economic activity and a general increase in awareness about EIA requirements (ECA, 2005).

EIA process is used in most developing countries on a wide variety of projects and activities and therefore, presents itself as one of the potential entry point for integrating climate change adaptation into the development process (OECD, 2009). Furthermore, EIA is a valued environmental management tool whose goal is to ensure that all the new development projects are sustainable, and that their possible impacts to the proposed projects identified early in the project cycle and taken into account at the project design stage (The World Bank, 2009). In principle, a range of EIA interventions could help reduce vulnerability to many climate change impacts on development actions. The potential impacts of climate change to development projects demands that all development projects should be subjected to a systematic climate risk and vulnerability assessment.

EIA has been identified by UNFCCC and Kyoto protocol as an effective instrument for climate change adaptation planning and management. However, under existing EIA procedures and processes, the impacts of climate change on the sustainability of proposed development projects are not usually effectively assessed in many countries. Additionally, ecological and socio‐economic evaluations undertaken during environmental assessment do not require a review of climate change impacts and possible adaptation programs (IPCC, 2007; IGAD, 2001).

Integration of climate change adaptation capabilities into the EIA process is an emerging issue whose status has not been sufficiently considered in the scientific studies which have been conducted especially in Africa. Some of the key questions regarding climate change and the implementation of EIA in the African nations would include the following:

• Does the current EIA methodology contain any kind of climate change adaptation capabilities?

• To what extent does the current EIA take into account the climate change information?

• What are the prospects of integrating climate change adaptation capabilities into EIA?

The overall objective of this study was to evaluate the current level of climate change adaptation integration into EIA studies in Kenya while the specific objectives were to:

• 1.

  establish the extent to which EIA studies in Kenya have taken into account the available climate change information;

• 2.

  determine if the current EIA process in Kenya is capable of effectively adapting to climate change; and

• 3.

  assess the prospects of improving and strengthening the integration of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies in the EIA framework in the country.

The study strategically considered all regions of Kenya, based on the assumption that different types of are taking place around the country. Although the typology and intensity of such project will vary from one region to another, all such activities are subject to EIA in accordance with the environmental law in Kenya, the Environmental Management and Coordination Act (EMCA, 1999). This law requires all new development projects which are listed in the Second Schedule of the Act to be screened through pre‐project EIAs and thereafter through regular environmental audits (EA). These environmental tests are usually conducted by the development investors in collaboration with external third party consultants and lead agencies as a strategy for ensuring environmental protection and public safety in the country.

Kenya consists of a wide range of natural ecosystems including arid and semi‐arid areas, savannah and forests within its total area of 581,700 km². The country, like the rest of the world, has a rapidly expanding built environment in the urban areas. The water or aquatic environment is composed of marine and coastal ecosystems, inland freshwater and saline lakes and a network of periodic and permanent rivers. The aquatic environment includes 14,300 and 143,100 km² of territorial waters and exclusive economic zone (EEZ), respectively, in the Indian Ocean (NCAPD, 2010). Figure 1 shows the location and key geographic areas of the country.

The economy of Kenya is based on a number of key sectors, all of which are closely reliant on the environment. Economic development in the country demands the initiation of a wide range of development activities in different sectors of the economy. The agriculture sector is the mainstay of the economy, accounting for 25 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) while tourism is second accounting for 7‐15 percent of the GDP. According to Kenya Vision 2030, numerous new projects are expected to be initiated in order to expand this sectors and move the country into a medium income nation by the year 2030. Livestock production is a prominent economic activity in Kenya particularly in the pastoral areas, where it sustains up to 80 percent of the population. The fisheries sector accounts for about 0.3 percent of GDP and provides employment for about 0.5 million people in Kenya. Kenya's industrial sector is one of the largest in sub‐Saharan Africa contributing approximately 10 percent to the GDP, employing 13 percent of the labour force and contributing 27 percent of the country's exports. The industrial and manufacturing sector, with over 2,000 manufacturing units, is highly fragmented geographically with Nairobi and Mombasa having 50 percent of all industries in the country (NCAPD, 2010). Kenya has a great potential for mineral resources exploration and development (Mathu and Davies, 1996). In recent years, the discovery of oil, coal and natural gas means that a lot of development projects will emerge to harness these resources. EIA is supposed to serve as an environmental tool for ensuring that economic development actions do not comprise the long‐term sustainability of the environment for current and future generations.

The study was conducted between January and May 2012, and involved collection of data from both secondary and primary sources. The secondary data was collected from approved EIA reports sourced from the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) database in Nairobi. The total number of approved EIA reports in Kenya at the time of the study was 8,250 since the process started in year 2000. The overall target of the study was to review approximately 1 percent of all the EIA reports in the national database based on the available resources both in terms of time and financial resources. Consequently, a total of 81 approved EIA reports were selected using the systematic sampling method from a total of 8,250 EIA studies. This involved selecting the first EIA report followed by the subsequent 100th reports until a total of 81 reports was attained representing all regions in Kenya and the key development sectors in the country. The profile of the 81 reports is shown in Table I according to their geographic regions and economic sectors.

The key variables assessed from the reports using a checklist included the EIA consideration of the historical climate patterns in the project sites and climate change predictions and their impacts on the proposed development projects, predicted climate risks and recommendations for climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Primary data collection mainly involved interviews with lead EIA experts in Kenya who are officially registered with NEMA and had a valid practicing license at the time of data collection. A total 34 interviewees were randomly selected through lottery method from a population of 379 registered lead EIA experts with a valid practicing license. This represented approximately 9 percent of the EIA practitioners in the country. Data collection was mainly done using a questionnaire in which the key variables considered included:

• the climate data the EIA practitioners considered while conducting EIA;

• the EIA adaptation capabilities in the country EIA legal framework; and

• methodology and prospects of integrating climate change adaptation into the EIA process.

For the data analysis, a data code sheet was created from EIA report checklist and EIA practitioner questionnaires. Data coding involved putting similar response statement into the same cluster categories. The data was then entered in a digital data file to enable cleaning, editing and verification of the raw data. The initial data file in Excel was eventually converted into the SPSS platform which is more versatile in data analysis. Exploratory data analysis was mostly restricted to the processing of summary statistics especially descriptive and frequency statistics including means, percentages, standard deviations and standard errors. These statistics were thereafter used to generate a wide range of descriptive graphics.

The findings showed that over 70 percent of the licensed EIA practitioners and consulting firms were located in the Nairobi region which is also the capital city of Kenya (Figure 2). All the other regions had less than 10 percent of practicing firms and experts. This pattern can be attributed to the centralized nature of EIA activities in the country where most of the decision making is made at the NEMA head office in Nairobi. However, this is bound to change under the new constitution of Kenya where all governance issues are to be devolved within 47 different counties around the country.

The analysis of the sample of 81 EIAs showed that 22.2 percent were conducted in the Rift Valley region which is also one of the largest in the country (Figure 1), followed by the Central region (16 percent), Coast and Eastern regions with 13.6 percent each while the rest of the regions accounted for less than 10 percent of the EIAs (Figure 3). This statistics may reflect the overall economic development patterns in the country whereby some areas are able to attract more investors than others.

Regarding the nature of climate related information considered in the EIA reports, 68 percent of the reports only considered the historical climate data of the project area, while 26 percent considered both the historical and the future climatic scenarios. For the key informant interviews, 6 percent of the interviewees gave no response with regard to the climate issue. This statistics clearly indicated that majority of the EIA practitioners in Kenya did not effectively consider how the future climate scenarios in proposed development project sites will look like and how that may affect the development activities in the country. In addition, all the EIA reports reviewed made consideration of historical climate change information but only 6 percent contained predicted climate change information and only 5 percent of the EIA reports made consideration for the predicted climate risks as shown in Figure 4.

To assess whether the current EIA studies contained any climate change adaptation capabilities, the EIA practitioners were directly asked whether they assessed and considered how the predicted climate change in the project locations will impact the projects. 62 percent of the respondents indicated that the current EIA framework in Kenya does not require the EIA practitioners to assess the impacts of climate change on the proposed project either legally or methodologically.

The EIA practitioners felt that according to the Environmental (Impact Assessment and Audit) Regulations, 2003 as reflected in the Legal Notice Number 101 of Kenya as well as the NEMA EIA guidelines, the implementation procedures do not contain any obligations for integration of climate change issues but only directs EIA practitioners to assess the impacts of proposed projects on the environment. On the other hand 38 percent were of the view that the EIA process does not explicitly prohibit the EIA practitioners to assess how climate change of the future in a certain locality will impact the proposed project even though, in practice such assessment was not evident. In fact, all the respondents agreed that the current EIA process in the context of the existing environmental framework law, EIA guidelines and procedures as one‐sided, where the process only looks at how the project impact on the environment and not vise versa.

The study considered the EIA practitioners' opinion on the importance of considering how the environment can also affect development projects and specifically the relevance of considering how climate change would affect projects during the EIA process. The results indicated that 97 and 94 percent of the responses revealed the importance and relevance of making considerations of impacts of environment and climate change on the proposed projects, respectively. In fact, 85 percent of the EIA practitioners interviewed indicated that, they have identified various impacts associated with climate change not only as a threat to proposed projects but also as a risk to the projects citing floods as the most climate change related risk to new projects especially those in the construction sector. Asked of their preferred model for integrating climate change adaptation in EIA recommendations, 96 percent of the respondents showed they preference to an EIA model that would consider both the impacts of the project to the environment and impacts of the environment to the projects, while 3 percent showed their preference to the current “one‐sided” EIA model. 1 percent suggested that assessment of impacts of the environment to the project should be evaluated through a totally different tool outside EIA framework. The results are shown in Figure 5.

According to the results of this study, the kind of climate information considered in EIAs in Kenya only takes into account is mainly historical. This is in line with an earlier study conducted in the USA by Curtis (2005) which revealed that, the kind of climate information which EIAs take into account is always or almost always the historical climatic patterns of the proposed project site. In the USA study by Curtis (2005) it was established that currently no climate change adaptation capabilities exist in the US EIA process. Practitioners interviewed during the believed that it was important, but were not very optimistic that this could actually happen. Most importantly, NEPA regulations did not require the assessment of climate change impacts upon projects (Curtis, 2005). It is important to note that NEPA, or the National Environmental Policy Act, established in 1969, was one of the first laws ever written that establishes a broad national framework for protecting the environment in the USA through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). On the other hand, the Environmental Management Authority Act (EMCA, 1999) and NEMA have only been in existence for only about a decade and is grappling with the challenges of implementing environmental policy in Kenya.

The inadequacy in sufficient integration of climate change adaptation in EIA has also been established by other scholars. For example, according Kørnøv et al. (2010), climate change integration in EIA is a relatively new field of action – and just emerging. According their analysis of EIA practice in the UK, it was established that climate change is often poor covered; with a study of 75 environmental statements establishing that only 70 percent included any discussion of GHGs, which in many cases was limited to a brief mention of climate change in the context chapters rather than any assessment of impacts.

However, according to Agrawala et al. (2010) there is ample scope for employing EIA procedures as a vehicle for enhancing the resilience of projects to the impacts of climate change. Consequently, several national and sub‐national authorities as well as multilateral development banks have already made some progress in terms of examining the possibility of incorporating climate change impacts and adaptation measures within the context of EIA modalities. However, a key bottleneck here is the availability of detailed information on the historical climate, as well as fairly specific scenarios of future climate for the project location.

This study revealed that a few of the EIA practitioners interviewed and EIA reports reviewed attempted to include predicted climate change related events like floods and drought but this did not consider the actual climatic predictions for such events. It is the general feeling in this study that if EIAs do not take into account future temperatures, rainfall patterns and other changes expected from climate change, then the process could be considered as a futile exercise which may not clearly inform development investors of all the likely environmental challenges of the future and how to mitigate them. This can be considered as an indication of the EIA inability to look into the future and therefore not adaptive to climate change as already highlighted by other researchers (Curtis, 2005; Cambell, 2006).

The study by Curtis (2005) showed that no climate change adaptation capabilities existed in the EIA framework for the USA, although some EIA practitioners in the USA believed that EIA is not mostly intended to consider how the environment will affect the project, and that such consideration could happen only if the environment is perceived as being restrictive to the project activities, therefore dictating what the developer could or could not do. Similarly, this study revealed that, EIA practitioners in Kenya believe that the EIA process does not contain climate change adaptation capabilities, and further argued that climate change adaptation integration into EIA can only happen if the EIA legal framework, regulations and implementation guidelines are reviewed to make such provisions.

Several physical planners involved in development projects that formed the basis of a study carried out by Virkki et al. (2006) revealed a strong interest in integrating climate change into the project planning activities, especially in connection with future land use. According to the planners this is necessary because although environmental sustainability is usually more important, political decision making is often made on short‐term and often non‐environmental interests. These findings are in agreement with the Kenya study in that, EIA practitioners were in total concurrence and of the strong view that such integration is important, citing such integration as a way of enhancing the sustainability of the projects in the context of changing environment within the areas where the projects are located. These results were also in line with the NCCRS in Kenya which spells out that climate change adaptation in the physical infrastructure sector is to ensure that the infrastructure is resilient over its lifespan in the face of climate change, and has further identified several responses among them adjustment to project approval/EIA process (GoK, 2010).

The destruction of infrastructure in various sectors during storms is increasingly becoming a common phenomenon during the ENSO events, and is causing a huge economic loss in Kenya. For instance, the damage caused by the eight‐month 1997/1998 El‐Niño rains to the country transport and telecommunication infrastructure was estimated at US$1 billion (Ngecu and Mathu, 1999). According to this study there is a general understanding of the linkage between effects of climate change and the accurate prediction capacity of the EIA process.

The integration of climate change into EIA would constitute a more thorough and improved planning process where effective integration of climate change considerations in the EIA process would help save development investement resources through better planning and more climate change resilient project designs as already highlighted by Becky (2005). Finally, it must be mentioned here that the findings in the Kenya study could probably have benefited much more if the review was expanded to consider a much higher number of EIA reports and EIA practitioners. However, the results generated are still important in providing a glimpse of the level of climate change adaptation in EIA practice in the country.

EIA practice in Kenya just like in other countries of the world is yet to effectively integrate the climate change adaptation although climate change will pose the greatest challenge to human security and development agenda such as Kenya Vision 2030. Most EIA studies in Kenya consider mainly the historical climate patterns of the proposed project areas but not effectively consider the context of climate change and neither do they contain any climate change adaptation capabilities. Therefore, inability of the pre‐project EIA studies to reflect any predicted regional or sectoral climate change pattern, and the absence of climate change adaptation capabilities implies that the status for integration of climate change adaptation capabilities into the current EIA approach in Kenya is very weak. At the same time, EIAs is clearly a good entry point for mainstreaming climate change adaptation into developmental planning. For that purpose EIA guidelines would need to be broadened to include considerations of climate change impacts.

The study established that EIA practitioners in Kenya consider integration of climate change adaptive capabilities into the EIA process as both relevant and important, and were of the opinion that an EIA process capable of assessing both the impacts of the proposed development projects to environment, and impacts of climate change on the projects would be a more stronger decision making tool for the NEMA. It would therefore be a good idea if the EIA protocol should be expanded to ensure that issues on climate change are considered particularly in the scoping stage Such a modified EIA process would exercise the precautionary principle and possibly mark another step of EIA evolution from the current implementation approach.

The following recommendations are made from the findings of this study in order to advance climate change integration in EIA implementation in Kenya:

• Review of EMCA, 1999, the EIA/EA regulation 2003 and EIA guidelines to make the assessment of the possible impacts of environment on the proposed project a legal requirement in the EIA process in Kenya.

• In collaboration with key environmental agencies, researchers to develop a framework for climate change mitigation and adaptation capabilities integration into various sections of EIA as identified by this study.

• Researchers should be encouraged to develop climate change prediction models for all regions in the country and scale them down so that they are applicable to local levels and sites in order to form scientific result based reference to EIA practitioner while conducting EIAs.

• Training of EIA practitioners to enhance their competence in the area of climate change integration into the EIA process.

The authors appreciate the assistance received from NEMA Director General Dr Ayub Macharia for authorizing access to the national database of EIA reports for the purpose of this study and thank Naomi Gitau, the NEMA Head of EIA Section, and Maureen Njeri, for the kind assistance they offered in making the EIA reports available. Many thanks go to Mahuro, Tiffany, Bernard and Michael for their assistance in data collection and data entry. While acknowledging the contributions of these persons and institutions, the authors would like to state that responsibility for the analysis and interpretation of the results lies with themselves and that the interpretations presented in this paper are solely their own and do not in any way reflect the positions of the institutions to which they are affiliated.

Julius W. Kamau is a Master's degree holder in environment planning and management. He is currently working as a Programme Manager (Environment, Climate Change and Natural Resources) in the Regional Development Cooperation Section at the Embassy of Sweden, Nairobi. Julius W. Kamau is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: jkammash@yahoo.com

Francis Mwaura is a PhD holder in geography, environment and natural resources management. He is currently serving as a senior lecturer in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at University of Nairobi, Kenya. He is an EIA trainer and practitioner in Kenya and closely involved in environmental and natural resources management in Kenya.