This archive report was first published on 28 November 2019.
Climate change is a pressing issue that requires immediate attention. The consequences of global warming are far-reaching, with catastrophic weather demonstrations that include haphazard rain patterns, deviant rainfall intensity, calamitous winds, high humidity, supercharged clouds, killer temperatures, and overcasting prolonged fog.
These extreme weather conditions are trailed by melting of ice and snow, heavy river discharge, enlarged gobs of hailstones that take days to melt, lightning and thunder, poor visibility, disproportionate rain, discomforting gales, catastrophic heatwaves, freezing temperatures, and poor visibility.
As a result, the country experiences diverse kinds of disasters. A hazard is a situation that is not causing harm but, with vulnerability, it transforms into a disaster.
The environmental disasters associated with global warming are numerous. Localised ones may include floods, drought, landslides, rockfalls, breaking and uprooting of trees, collapse of structures, destruction of crops, and deaths.
According to environmental experts, floods cause death to people and destroy the environment, sweep away property, cause sedimentation of water bodies, excite sewage flooding, and cause diseases. Droughts cause food shortage and famine, malnutrition, and death.
However, there are ways to mitigate the effects of climate change. Prolonged rains and pluvial floods can encourage landslides and rockfalls, causing loss of life and land scarring. Poor visibility causes navigation accidents, while humongous hailstones can break glasses, kill people on impact, and cause snowing and frosting.
Experts recommend planting cover crops, enhancing forest cover, strengthening weak riverbanks, deepening sedimented rivers, constructing coastal barriers, and discouraging settlements on flood paths to combat floods. Droughts and famines can be combated through afforestation, practising climate-smart agriculture, and harvesting flood- and rainwater.
Cloud seeding can cure extraordinary hailstones, just as planting live hedges and wood bunds shields against storms.
Landslides are a major concern in Kenya, particularly in the steep areas of the country. A landslide/ landslip is a conglomeration of mass wasting processes that include rockfalls, mudflows, and debris flow.
Recently, a landslide caused the death of more than 50 people in West Pokot County. In the absence of a landslide disaster preparedness, the disaster can easily replicate itself in other rugged areas.
Therefore, the government should map out landslide-prone areas, target them for restorative and progressive land use, and provide specific information to vulnerable citizens.
Residents should be aware of landslide indicative signs, such as tilted trees and power lines that are usually vertical; bulging earth, especially on road edges and slopes; mounds of soil against house walls and fences; cracks on the earth's surface, house walls, and concrete floors (as house foundations shift); sunken sections of road surfaces, cracks on roads and sidewalks, broken water lines, spaces in door jambs and frames, reduced levels of water in ponds, and water pools on raised areas (despite continuous rainfall) and displaced rocks.
Individuals can take action against landslides by safeguarding their homes, steadying hanging portions of land and rock, reducing or ceasing activities that encourage landslides.
They should also avoid settlement on steep slopes, semi-suspended escarpments, on the lower end of a road that cuts into an escarpment, and at the base of sharp hills; planting trees on bare cliff and escarpment surfaces, and monitoring their environment for landslide signs, which should be taken as vacating orders.
Landslide signs should also be reported to neighbours and concerned authorities.
