Desalegn Yayeh (PhD)Yeshi Mulatu2024-01-222024-01-222023-06https://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/1423Climate variability is a very important issue- in terms of the global context and its effect on food security and livelihoods. The dynamic of this factor is currently affecting food security and livelihoods in an unbalanced way. This study aimed to assess the effect of climate variability on household food security. The study used metrological data from the period 1981 to 2017. Monthly rainfall and temperature data from NMI were used for the analysis. The standardized anomalies of temperature and rainfall variability using the Mann-Kendal and Sen’slope estimator were applied to evaluate the occurrence of dry and wet periods. Primary data was gathered from 261 sample households, FGD and KII. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Accoridngly, the result revealed that during the study period (1981-2017), there were exceedance dry periods (963.2%) as compared with the occurrence of wet periods (36.8%) meanwhile, mean annual temperature varies spatially across the study area from 0.0170C to 0.0350 C, which all variations subjected to potential high evapotranspiration to potential high evapotranspiration with a consequent effect on crop production in the study area. The analysis of people’s perception of the manifestation of climate variability and the coping mechanisms deployed to deal with its effect on food security revealed that among others, changing planting date measures has been used by 15.9% of respondents as mitigation for climate variability effect. As regards the role of climate variability perception and household food security, the data analysis doesn’t show the perception of climate variability as a significant variable. While in general, more food-secure households happen to be more perceivers of climate variability. Analysis of data on climate variability on household food security revealed that there is no striking difference in the proportion of households that were in acceptable, borderline, and poor food consumption categories/levels. In fact, more than 75% of the studied population falls under acceptable and moderate food security levels. Hence, strong iniiatives that strengthen the food production system is required and should exhaustively invest in agricultural research, extension, and techiques for lowering food production lossess, and work on climate adaption and weather variability adaption strategies at local level to maintain food security in the study area.enClimate variabilityFood securityAbay River basinThesis