Roland Sylvester Mushi

Climate Change and the Coastal Environment: Implications on Coastal Tourism in Bagamoyo District, Tanzania Roland Sylvester Mushi

Tourism industry in Tanzania is facing a number of challenges including impacts from climate change. This situation is affecting tourism activities along the coast as well. Results observed from Tanzania Meteorological Agency showed that, there is decreasing of rainfall trend over the years along the coast. Temperature increased by approximately 0.50C and 20C for mean maximum and minimum temperature, whereas the average annual temperature increases of 10C for over 30 years since 1978 was noted, among others this situation was noted to be a setback to tourism activities in the areas. Findings from the study showed that, coastal natural resources are vulnerable to the increased temperature, sea level rise and drought. Threats from sea level rise and coastal erosion is of significant which increases vulnerabilities to tourism activities in the areas. Further, the study revealed that existing policies do not explicitly address the mitigation and adaptation strategies to tourism activities. Adaptation strategies such as construction of sea walls, re-planting of mangroves trees and piling up of sand bag were noted to be applied by Antiquity Department and hotels as coping strategies.