TITLE:
The Influence of Climate Variability on the Watermelon Production in Zanzibar
AUTHORS:
Asya Omar Hamad, Kombo Hamad Kai, Agnes Kijazi, Sara Abdalla Khamis, Abdalla Hassan Abdalla, Hassan Khatib Ame, Masoud Makame Faki, Faki Ali Ali
KEYWORDS:
Watermelon, March to May (MAM) and October to November (OND) Seasonal Rainfall, Maximum and Minimum Temperature, Anecdotal Information
JOURNAL NAME:
Atmospheric and Climate Sciences,
Vol.13 No.1,
December
6,
2022
ABSTRACT: Climate change and variability, has embarked
societies in Zanzibar to rely on horticulture (i.e. watermelon production) as an adaptive measure due to an
unpromising situation of commonly used agricultural yields. Currently, there is
either no or scant information that describes the influence of climate changes and variability to watermelon
production in Zanzibar. Thus, this study aimed to determine the influence of
climate variability on the quantity of watermelon production in Zanzibar. The
study used both primary and secondary datasets, which include the anecdotal
information collected from interviewers’ responses from four districts of
Unguja and Pemba, and climate parameters (rainfall, maximum and minimum
temperature (Tmax and Tmin) acquired from Tanzania Meteorological Authority
(TMA) at Zanzibar offices. Pearson correlation was used for analyzing the
association between watermelon production and climate parameters, while paired
t-test was applied to show the significance of the mean differences of
watermelon and climate parameters for two periods of 2014-2017 and 2018-2021,
respectively. Percentage changes were used to feature the extent to which the
two investigated parameters affect each other. The anecdotal responses were
sorted, calculated in monthly and seasonal averages, plotted and then analyzed.
Results have shown a strong correlation (r = 0.8 at p ≤ 0.02, and r = 0.7) between watermelon
production, Tmax and rainfall during OND, especially in Unguja, as well as Tmin
during JJA (i.e. r = - 0.8 at p ≤
0.02) in Pemba. Besides, results have shown the existence of significant differences between the means of watermelon production and climate parameter
for the two stated periods, indicating that the climate parameters highly
affects the watermelon production by either enhancing or declining the yields by 69% - 162% and 17% - 77%, respectively. Moreover, results
have shown that respondents were aware that excess temperature intensity during
dry periods can lead to high production costs due number of soil and other
environmental factors. Besides the results have shown that OND seasonal
rainfall and MAM Tmax had good association with watermelon production in Unguja
while JJA Tmin declined the production in Pemba. Thus, the study concludes that
seasonal variability of climate parameter has a significant influence on the
watermelon production. The study calls for more studies on factors affecting
watermelon production (e.g. soil characteristics, pest sides and manure), and
recommends for climate based decision making on rain fed agricultural yields
and routine monitoring of weather information.