Drought risk & vulnerability assessment

This study was undertaken in arid and semi arid county of Baringo which is prone to perennial droughts, with the majority of its population affected by the recurrent droughts and high poverty levels. The primary objective of this research is to assess population vulnerability, drought risk and rainfall performance during the drought period. The drought assessment was based on known drought periods, of 2009. Meteorological validation using NOAA-AVRHR data was used to determine the rainfall variation over the long term average. The data were obtained from NOAA-Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), and processed with ESRI-arcGIS software. The population vulnerability was processed using poverty rates, population density and livelihoods. An analytical hierarchy process criterion was used in determining vulnerability using the three socioeconomic variables. The drought assessment was determined using the normalized difference drought Index (NDDI) a combination of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and the normalized difference water index (NDWI). The results show that the poverty prevalence is high in marginal and pastoral livelihoods. Approximately 27.87%