Understanding Resilience to El Niño Effects in a Southern Kenyan Coastal Socio-Ecological System, 2016

A major El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event emerged in early 2014, altering global weather patterns and sea surface temperatures (SST) from the tropical and southern Pacific to the Western Indian Ocean. Significant impacts have been reported in coastal Kenya, including flood-related disruption to livelihoods and damage to property. McClanahan (in preparation) reported that the SST anomaly was comparable with that recorded in 1997-1998, the strongest El Niño ever recorded, and has caused significant (up to 70% ) bleaching of the nation’s fringing reef, with unknown impacts on the fisheries. The Kenyan government made significant investments in preparedness and response planning for the 2015-2016 El Niño, but it is unclear how local communities and households responded to the event. Two ESPA funded projects, CESEA and SPACES, were operating in the southern area of Kenya. They have studied the interdependent coastal ecosystems of mangroves, seagrass meadows and coral reefs, and collected socio-economic data from coastal communities with high reliance on ecosystem services, such as artisanal fisheries and mangrove products. This supplementary project utilised the personnel, expertise and infrastructure of CESEA and SPACES to investigate the effects of El Niño at existing study sites.