The study took a deliberately integrated approach. Rather than treating climate stress on cattle and the socio-economic fallout in herding households as separate problems, the authors combined a cross-sectional scoping review with a systematic literature search, screening 409 records from databases including Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar under PRISMA-ScR criteria. After removing 60 duplicates and excluding 240 irrelevant records at the title and abstract stage, 109 articles underwent full-text scrutiny, and 22 studies, just 5.4 percent of the initial pool, passed all eligibility checks. The surviving evidence focused on the East African Cattle Corridor, a belt of arid and semi-arid lands where pastoralism remains the primary livelihood system and where rainfall is irregular, droughts are recurrent and heat stress is intensifying.

At the heart of the biological findings is the temperature-humidity index, or THI, a composite measure that combines air temperature and relative humidity to quantify the heat load an animal experiences. When THI values climb above optimal thresholds, livestock divert metabolic energy from production and reproduction toward thermoregulation. The review found that THI levels in East Africa have risen above the levels required for optimal livestock productivity, suppressing feed intake, fertility and milk yield while increasing susceptibility to disease and parasitism. Field evidence from Bagamoyo, Tanzania, cited in the review, found that 74 percent of pastoralists reported suboptimal cattle performance attributable to heat and humidity stress. Comparable trends emerged in Kenya and Uganda, where recurring droughts and variable rainfall compound the physiological burden.

Rainfall variability operates through a second channel: pasture. Unpredictable precipitation disrupts the growth and regeneration cycles of rangeland plants, reducing forage availability and pushing grazing pressure onto already degraded ecosystems. Poor feed availability triggers malnutrition among cattle, undermining health, growth, reproductive capability and body condition. The review’s synthesis tables document weight loss in Tanzania, disrupted pasture regeneration in Kenya and delayed rainfall seasons reducing livestock productivity in Uganda. When drought strikes, water sources dry up and animals must travel ever longer distances to drink, an energy expenditure that pushes marginal animals over the edge. The result, the authors report, is increased mortality from dehydration and energy deficiency, with drought frequency in recent years, particularly 2024 and 2025, driving significant herd losses.

These biophysical shocks translate into a socio-economic crisis with remarkable fidelity. Reduced milk yields and livestock deaths cut household income from dairy sales and market participation, narrowing economic options precisely when families need flexibility most. Because milk is a core component of the pastoral diet, declining production feeds directly into household food insecurity, and the review documents rising dependence on food aid and external relief programs in drought-affected areas of Kenya and Uganda. Asset sustainability erodes as well: repeated climate shocks force distressed sales of livestock during droughts, when prices collapse, deepening poverty and reducing the coping capacity of households that lose their primary form of capital.

The social consequences may be the most volatile. As herders migrate in search of water and grazing land, competition over scarce resources intensifies, and the review links climate-induced migration to escalating conflicts between communities over grazing areas and water points in all three countries. The authors also emphasize that resilience is never uniform within pastoral societies; it varies with gender, access to resources and institutional support, dimensions that earlier studies have often failed to characterize adequately. In northern Kenya, the review notes, consistent livestock losses and minimal market participation have pushed many households to abandon pastoral activities altogether or revert to subsistence practices, a livelihood transition that signals systemic fragility rather than adaptation.

Pastoralists are not passive victims, and the review catalogs a repertoire of adaptive strategies that have sustained herding communities for generations. Livestock mobility remains the cornerstone: seasonal migration and transhumance allow herders to track pasture and water across landscapes, preventing total herd collapse during droughts. Herd diversification offers biological insurance, with communities shifting toward drought-tolerant species such as goats, sheep and camels that can browse where cattle starve. Livelihood diversification, from trading and wage employment to mixed farming, supplements income when livestock performance deteriorates. Combining indigenous knowledge with early warning systems has also improved decision-making under climatic uncertainty, the review found.

Yet the effectiveness of these strategies is diminishing, and the authors are blunt about why. Limited resource availability constrains mobility; the high cost of inputs such as veterinary support hinders profitability; and institutional support is inconsistent across the three countries despite their similar ecologies. The review’s socio-ecological systems framework highlights how divergent political environments shape adaptation: Kenya has adopted devolution and sophisticated dryland policies supporting drought resilience and index-based livestock insurance, Uganda emphasizes sedentarisation and modernisation of customary systems in regions such as Karamoja, and Tanzania pursues a decentralised climate strategy with district-level agricultural plans. The same climatic stress, filtered through different institutions, produces different levels of resilience.

The review’s central argument is that indigenous knowledge alone is insufficient for long-term sustainability, particularly in light of the extreme conditions of 2024 and 2025. The authors call for climate-smart pastoralism that fuses traditional practices, such as the pastoral calendar, migration routes and diversified herds, with modern innovations: satellite-based vegetation and forage monitoring, early warning systems and climate advisory services to guide grazing decisions, efficient water supply systems powered by solar boreholes and rainwater harvesting, and index-based livestock insurance schemes such as Kenya’s KLIP and the broader IBLI model, which pay out automatically when drought indices cross predefined thresholds. They also recommend drought-resistant breeds, including Boran cattle, East African Zebu, Galla goats and Somali camels, alongside transboundary grazing agreements to reduce conflict and milk processing to add value to pastoral livelihoods.

The study is not without limitations, which the authors acknowledge. Data reporting varies across the corridor’s extensive geography, and disparities in historical climatic and veterinary records may influence THI measurements. The cross-sectional design captures a single time point, so long-term climate shifts and rapid social and political change over decades cannot be fully accounted for. It is also difficult to disentangle community-level adaptation from state policy implementation, since pastoralists often adapt out of immediate economic necessity regardless of institutional frameworks. Still, the synthesis delivers a clear message: without technology integration alongside indigenous knowledge, the further erosion of East Africa’s pastoral livestock systems seems inevitable, and the window for building climate-smart resilience is narrowing with every failed rainy season.

Subject of Research: Climate variability and socio-economic impacts on livestock systems in East Africa

Article Title: Climate variability and the pastoralist’s dilemma: socio-economic impacts on livestock systems in East Africa

Article References: Ngongolo, K., Sigala, A., Sakran Abass, K., & Mrimi, D. (2026). Climate variability and the pastoralist’s dilemma: socio-economic impacts on livestock systems in East Africa. Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice, 16, Article 16791. https://doi.org/10.3389/past.2026.16791

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/past.2026.16791

Keywords: pastoralism, climate variability, East Africa, livestock production, temperature-humidity index, drought, food security, adaptation strategies, index-based livestock insurance, climate-smart pastoralism, Climate, variability