Probing Adaptive Farm-Based Decision-Making: Assessing Micro-Catchment Practices towards Smart Agricultural Intensification within Muooni Sub-Catchment, Kenya

Riparian areas provide many critical ecosystem functions, including reducing nutrients and sediments from surface runoff, reducing erosion, and providing shade and organic matter to stream ecosystems. The Muoonimicro-catchment area is densely settled and degraded as a result of land sub-divisions arising from the ever increasing population. Land fragmentation is very common in the area and therefore, conserving the riparian vegetation is important in the management of the Muooni dam as a source of water for a multiplicity of uses. In this paper we examined the conservation practices of the riparian vegetation in the Muooni dam micro-catchment with in-depth interviews, transect walks and field observation techniques and noted that diverse land use practices are seriously affecting the quality of the riparian vegetation and the quality of the dam by increasing sediment loading within the dam. There are pockets of effort by the local farmers in preventing soil erosion in their farms along Muooni dam. However, strengthening the connection between government initiatives and individual famer initiatives is more likely to have a greater outcome. It is therefore deemed imperative for the local authorities to initiate farmer group activities taking the set-up of innovation platforms to conserve the riparian land and vegetation.