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Soil Fertility Recovery at the Kara River Basin (Togo, West Africa): Local Solutions at the Interface of Climate and Land Use Change

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Climate Change Strategies: Handling the Challenges of Adapting to a Changing Climate

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Abstract

Degrading soils reduce the tolerance to a variable and changing climate; managing soil fertility is key to climate change adaptation. Rural communities of the Kara River Basin in Togo see soil and climate issues as closely linked. To identify local solutions to adapt to climate and land-use-change-induced soil fertility decline, this study employed semi-structured questionnaire interviews with 436 respondents (farming households) from 38 selected villages in the river basin, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews coupled with transect-walks in the landscape. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics through IBM IPSS version 25 and MS EXCEL 2016, and triangulation methods to verify results. The local solutions farmers mentioned beyond chemical fertilizers, were dominated by natural solutions such as: fallowing (53%), mixed farming (50%), composting (45%), contour cropping (43%), mulching (28%), agroforestry (8%), and (other) biological fertilizers (7%). All these solutions were rated 8.5 and 9 on a scale of 10 by farmers in terms of performance in improving soil fertility and increasing yields, respectively. The study concluded that local nature-based solutions as such are preferred by farmers and present huge potential to combat the soil fertility loss in existing land use in the basin that is aggravated by climate change. Such solutions should be prioritized for testing if rural households are to increase resilience vis-a-vis global environmental changes.

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Acknowledgements

We recognize the support from the Agriculture Regional Directorate of the Kara Region, agricultural extension officers during fieldwork and community outreaches as well as farming households who played a key role for participating in the survey. This study is part of the doctoral thesis of the first author (M.B).

Conflicts of Interest

All the authors have read and approved the final manuscript and declare no conflict of interest.

Funding

We appreciate the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for their financial support for this Doctoral research programme Scholarship and research grant (Grant nb. Batch 4) at the University of The Gambia through the West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) Initiative. This work was also produced with the financial aid of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation through the IPCC Scholarship Programme (2021–2023). The work is solely the liability of the authors and under no circumstances may be considered as a reflection of the position of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation and/or the IPCC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. West Africa Graduate School on Climate Change and Education, University of The Gambia, Kanifing Campus, MDI Road, Kanifing, Serrekunda, 3530 PB, Gambia

    M’koumfida Bagbohouna & Sidat Yaffa

  2. Centre for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF), Bogor, 16155, Indonesia

    Meine van Noordwijk

  3. Laboratory of Botany, Université de Lomé, Lomé, Togo

    Badabaté Diwediga

Authors
  1. M’koumfida Bagbohouna
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  2. Meine van Noordwijk
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  3. Badabaté Diwediga
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  4. Sidat Yaffa
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Contributions

M.B designed the methodology, conducted the analysis, and drafted the manuscript; M.v.N advised on research design and improved the draft manuscript with inputs, suggestions, and proofreading; B.D improved the draft manuscript with inputs and suggestions; S.Y contributed with comments.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to M’koumfida Bagbohouna .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Research and Transfer Centre "Sustainable Development and Climate Change Management", Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany

    Walter Leal Filho

  2. Research and Transfer Centre "Sustainable Development and Climate Change Management", Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany

    Marina Kovaleva

  3. Department of Life Sciences, Universidade Aberta, Lisbon, Portugal

    Fátima Alves

  4. College of Architecture and Planning, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia

    Ismaila Rimi Abubakar

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Bagbohouna, M., van Noordwijk, M., Diwediga, B., Yaffa, S. (2023). Soil Fertility Recovery at the Kara River Basin (Togo, West Africa): Local Solutions at the Interface of Climate and Land Use Change. In: Leal Filho, W., Kovaleva, M., Alves, F., Abubakar, I.R. (eds) Climate Change Strategies: Handling the Challenges of Adapting to a Changing Climate. Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28728-2_28

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