Adoption of climate-smart agriculture and integrated water resources management in East Africa floodplains: A Review on Lower River Nyando and Western Rwanda floodplains

Climate Smart Agriculture is an integrated approach addressing the interlinked challenges of climate change dynamics, food security and poverty reduction. Integrated Water Resource Management is defined as the process promoting the coordinated development and management of water, land and associated resources to maximize social and economic welfare equitably without compromising the sustainability of key ecosystems. The specific objectives of the study were to: (1) summarize CSA and IWRM practices in Kenya and Rwanda, (2) review the status of implementation of CSA and IWRM practices in Kenya and Rwanda, and (3) identify the key challenges to the implementation of CSA and IWRM practices in Kenya and Rwanda.

We retrieved CSA and IWRM data from Web of Science (WoS) using the following keywords “Climate Smart Agriculture in Kenya and Rwanda”, and “Integrated Water Resources Management in Kenya and Rwanda”. In the articles search, we considered the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIEXPANDED) from all the years. The inclusion threshold were studies that reported CSA and IWRM in Kenya and Rwanda. The VOS Viewer mapped articles on CSA and IWRM in Kenya and Rwanda and revealed that Pastorello (2020) and Lipper (2014) were among the most important articles cited for CSA in Kenya and Rwanda. Further, Henegan (2019), Pahl-Wostl (2007), and Litchtenberg (2017) were among the most important articles cited for IWRM in the aforementioned region. The limited literature and empirical data demonstrates how studies and adoption of CSA and IWRM in the Kenya and Rwanda are still relatively low as compared to global north, even though East Africa is highly prone to climate change dynamics because of the countries dependence on rain-fed agriculture. The actionable recommendations for policymakers and practitioners include pushing for adoption and implementation of both CSA and IWRM through publication of successful cases studies in reputable journals to reduce overreliance on information from global north.