Geospatial Techniques Contribution for Climate Change Adaptation: Review of Literatures on Ethiopia

Abstract

Ethiopia is highly susceptible to the global climate change due to its fragile environment and nature of its economic base. To this effect, climate change adaptation strengthened by geospatial technologies is vital. This paper is, therefore, intended to assess the role of geospatial techniques in climate change adaptation activities. Various research articles, reports and books were reviewed. The surveyed literatures showed that geospatial techniques can help climate change adaptation either by identifying potential capabilities or estimating upcoming risks. When socio-economic and ecological vulnerabilities are assessed, it enables to alarm for the necessity of climate change adaptation, and when socio-economic capacity and natural resources endowment are clearly identified and mapped it augments climate change adaptation. That is, geospatial techniques have been utilized in various areas in order to generate geographic, climatic, geologic, biological and geo-referenced socio-economic situations of different parts of Ethiopia. In addition, there have been increased numbers of researches conducted using geospatial analysis methods that obtained opportunities from the advancement and suitability of the field. To conclude, integration of geospatial techniques enables to move toward solution of climate change problem which is geographical in its nature. Thus, all stakeholders should contribute for advancement of spatial science and have to develop the habit of applying the findings obtained from researches conducted using geospatial techniques.