Social Vulnerability of Rural Dwellers to Climate Variability: Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

Abstract

For their livelihood activities, rural farming communities depend more on extractive capital. Their capacity to cultivate sufficiently for their family maintenance is greatly impeded by the absence of either temperature or rainfall quantity pattern or uniformity. The divergent effects of recent extreme weather events around the world, including within relatively small geographical areas, exemplify the unequal impacts of climate change on populations. Akwa Ibom State has been found vulnerable to extreme weather events, such as flooding, severe storms, and rising sea levels, leading to homelessness, poverty, conflicts, and war for millions of people. All of these have resulted in social disturbances and dislocations among rural populations, especially in coastal communities, making them more vulnerable to climate variability. In the field of social vulnerability in the state, not much has been achieved. This chapter analyzes the vulnerability of the rural population to climate variability; the socio-economic characteristics of the rural population; the index of social vulnerability of rural dwellers to climate variability; social vulnerability factors; and the rural population’s social vulnerability mitigation initiatives in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. Social science approaches to human vulnerability draw critical attention to the root causes and factors why people are forced to respond to risks from climate change. A complex social approach to vulnerability is most likely to enhance mitigation and adaptation preparation efforts, given that vulnerability is a multidimensional mechanism rather than an invariable state.