Corrie Hannah

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• Joshi, N., Gerlak, A., Hannah, C., Lopus, S., Krell, N., & Evans, T. (2023). Water insecurity, housing tenure, and the role of informal water services in Nairobi's slum settlements. World Development, 164. doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.106165
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  Presently, about one billion people reside in slums around the world, creating an ongoing urbanization and development challenge. Slum settlements lack tenure security, posing an additional challenge for municipal and national governments in providing basic services. In particular, safe and affordable access to water for slum residents remains unmet, as slum settlements often lack municipal water supply coverage and rely on small-scale informal water services. We examined the dynamics between housing tenure status (tenancy vs ownership), water service types, and water insecurity among households in three slum settlements in Nairobi, Kenya. Using a cross-culturally validated 11-item Household Water Insecurity Experience (HWISE) scale, we identified a key link between housing tenure status and water insecurity, based on survey data from 556 households. We found that water insecurity in the study sites is a significant challenge because of the link between housing tenure and access to different water service types. As such, water insecurity scores among tenants were significantly higher than homeowners, and this association persists even after controlling for household characteristics. Furthermore, a higher percentage of homeowners had access to formal water services than tenants and accessing water from informal water providers was related to higher water insecurity. Our results highlight the need for development interventions in slums to consider housing tenure of residents when planning interventions to alleviate water insecurity. To meet the goal of ‘equitable water for all’ set by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), governments must also take key steps to resolve housing tenure injustice and expand home ownership in slum settlements.
• Davies, J., Blekking, J., Hannah, C., Zimmer, A., Joshi, N., Anderson, P., Chilenga, A., & Evans, T. (2022). Governance of traditional markets and rural-urban food systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Habitat International, 127. doi:10.1016/j.habitatint.2022.102620
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  Traditional markets form a critical part of rural-urban food systems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Aside from providing more affordable and physically accessible food to low-income consumers, traditional markets serve as wholesalers to street vendors, create market entry points for smallholder farmers, and provide essential employment opportunities for sellers. However, many traditional markets face ongoing challenges such as infrastructure deficits, poor waste management, and internal conflict that undermine their effectiveness. Markets that perform effectively can provide requisite services to vendors and manage relationships between actors within and outside the market. We propose that the degree to which traditional markets are able to play an effective role in rural-urban food systems depends on the governance structures in place in individual markets. We aim to take initial steps toward developing an institutional analysis methodology that can be used to identify the set of institutional arrangements that are appropriate for successfully governing traditional markets. Using data from a 2021 phone call survey of 81 urban and rural markets in Zambia, and drawing inspiration from Ostrom's design principles for enduring common pool resources, we identify some of the institutional arrangements that tend to lead to effective market performance in Zambia, including market formality, the role of market committees, government engagement in markets, and conflict resolution protocols. Our study alone does not definitively identify the set of institutions that are appropriate for successfully governing traditional markets, particularly beyond the Zambian context. However, we highlight the types of data that need to be collected to achieve this objective by contributing a survey instrument and an empirical dataset of traditional markets across the rural-urban food system.
• Hannah, C., Davies, J., Green, R., Zimmer, A., Anderson, P., Battersby, J., Baylis, K., Joshi, N., & Evans, T. (2022). Persistence of open-air markets in the food systems of Africa's secondary cities. Cities, 124. doi:10.1016/j.cities.2022.103608
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  In a rapidly urbanizing sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), changing urban food systems are expected to affect the ways in which households access food. While significant research and policy efforts address food production to support food security in the context of city-region food systems, the complex nature of urban food systems has received less attention, particularly in secondary cities across the globe. Using household survey data collected in 2019 across 4 cities in Kenya and 14 cities in Zambia, we examined patterns of household food acquisition from key food retail locations. Households predominantly purchased food from open-air markets and vendors, and only a subset of households bought food from supermarkets. Variations in urban population size, area, and connectivity across the 18 cities presented a clustering of four city types that shape household food access and purchasing patterns at food retail locations. Despite a growing narrative that supermarkets and western diets will dominate SSA's urban food systems, our findings suggest that low- to middle-income households will continue to purchase food at open-air markets in SSA's secondary cities in the coming years. Attention to these urban household purchasing patterns can inform urban planning and governance priorities to ensure that SSA's food systems can meet urban food security needs.
• Hannah, C., Hibberd, R., Kear, M., & McCann, L. M. (2022). The Manufactured Housing Mosaic: A novel approach to differentiating and measuring social vulnerability. SocArXiv. doi:10.31235/osf.io/g3fys
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  Efforts to measure and map spatial variation in vulnerability have long employed manufactured and mobile homes (MH) as an indicator of vulnerability. This practice reinforces perceptions of MH as a inferior form of home. We present a novel approach to measuring social vulnerability among MH residents that seeks to internally differentiate the MH population and produce deeper insights into the complex relationship between housing type, social vulnerability, and housing insecurity. We apply logistic principal component analysis (LPCA) to census microdata from 1,094 MH households in Pima County, Arizona to identify components with variable loadings consistent with social vulnerability and housing security interpretations. Four vulnerability profiles emerge from this analysis. Profiles were corroborated using interview data from 72 MH households. The article provides new insights into within-housing-type variation in the relationship between vulnerability and housing insecurity, and (ii) the role of housing type in mediating that relationship.
• Joshi, N., Lopus, S., Hannah, C., Ernst, K., Kilungo, A., Opiyo, R., Ngayu, M., Davies, J., & Evans, T. (2022). COVID-19 lockdowns: Employment and business disruptions, water access and hygiene practices in Nairobi's informal settlements. Social Science and Medicine, 308. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115191
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  Host to one billion people around the world, informal settlements are especially vulnerable to COVID-19 lockdown measures as they already lack basic services such as water, toilets, and secure housing. Additionally, many residents work in informal labor markets that have been affected by the lockdowns, resulting in further reductions in access to resources, including clean water. This study uses a cross-sectional design (n = 532) to examine the vulnerabilities of households to employment and business disruptions, water access and hygiene practices during the COVID-19 lockdowns between April and June 2020 in three informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya. We used survey questions from the Household Water Insecurity Experience Scale (HWISE) to investigate the relationship between employment and business disruptions, water access, and hygiene practices (i.e., hand washing, body washing, clothes washing, and being able to use or drink clean water). Of the sampled households, 96% were forced to reduce work hours during the lockdowns, and these households had 92% lower odds of being able to afford water than households who did not experience a work hour reduction (OR = 0.08, p
• Davies, J., Hannah, C., Guido, Z., Zimmer, A., McCann, L., Battersby, J., & Evans, T. (2021). Barriers to urban agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa. Food Policy, 103. doi:10.1016/j.foodpol.2020.101999
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  Trends in urbanization and urban food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have stimulated critical debates around the potential benefits of urban agriculture (UA) to urban livelihoods. Some scholars suggest that UA can contribute to the food quantity, food quality and income needs of urban households. However, much of the evidence cited comes from single case studies, with particular attention paid to large cities and high-income countries. There is a resulting gap in understanding regarding what role UA plays in the food security of households in smaller African cities and towns. These smaller urban areas are likely to house a large fraction of SSA's urban population in future and are important sites for early intervention by policymakers. Our analysis is based on survey data collected from 2,687 low- and low-middle income households in 18 urban areas with populations of less than 200,000 across Zambia and Kenya. We perform statistical analyses to investigate the association between UA and household food security and assess which types of households are engaged in UA. We found that 33% of households in our sample are engaged in UA and there was limited statistical significance in terms of the relationship between UA and household food security. Our results reveal three key barriers to UA, namely settlement formality, property rights, and distance from food retailers. These barriers imply the need for urban planners and policymakers to revisit how decisions are made about issues such as residential development, land tenure, transport infrastructure, and the use of space in cities, as these affect the ability of households to produce, sell, and access food. Policy and planning mechanisms should further recognize the embeddedness of UA within African urban food systems, in which traditional markets, informal trading, and modern food retail also play an integral role.
• Guido, Z., Lopus, S., Waldman, K., Hannah, C., Zimmer, A., Krell, N., Knudson, C., Estes, L., Caylor, K., & Evans, T. (2021). Perceived links between climate change and weather forecast accuracy: new barriers to tools for agricultural decision-making. Climatic Change, 168(1-2). doi:10.1007/s10584-021-03207-9
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  The accuracy of weather forecasts has experienced remarkable improvements over the recent decades and is now considered important tools for developing the climate resilience of smallholder farmers, particularly as climate change upends traditional farming calendars. However, the effect of observations of climate change on the use of weather forecasts has not been studied. In an analysis of smallholder farming in Zambia, Kenya, and Jamaica, we document low weather forecast use, showing that perceptions of changes in the climate relate to views on forecast accuracy. Drawing on detailed data from Zambia, we show that weather forecast use (or not) is associated with perceptions of the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the forecast, with rates of weather forecast use far lower among those who believe climate change impacts forecast accuracy. The results suggest a novel feedback whereby climate change erodes confidence in weather forecasts. Thus, in a changing climate where improvements in weather forecasts have been made, farmers thus experience a double disadvantage whereby climate change disrupts confidence in traditional ways of knowing the weather and lowers trust in supplementary technical forecasting tools.
• Hannah, C., Giroux, S., Krell, N., Lopus, S., McCann, L., Zimmer, A., Caylor, K., & Evans, T. (2021). Has the vision of a gender quota rule been realized for community-based water management committees in Kenya?. World Development, 137. doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105154
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  Persisting gender inequities across political, economic, and public life have motivated global agendas to increase women's leadership at all levels of society. Gender quotas offer one solution to encourage equitable gender representation in public decision-making by specifying a target number of women to serve on publicly-elected bodies. For natural resource governance sectors, can gender quotas promote women's representation and participation in leadership? In 2010, Kenya enacted a new Constitution that included an article mandating that no one gender should make up greater than two-thirds of the composition of public committees. This ‘two-thirds gender rule’ also applies to community-level governance of water resources through water user resource associations, which were formally recognized in 2002. We present a study of community-based water committee compliance with Kenya's national two-thirds gender rule based on surveys, focus groups, and interviews with water committee members. We show that Kenya's gender quota has been moderately successful in increasing women's representation on water committees. However, men hold more higher-level leadership positions than women, who typically serve as treasurers. Although there were no statistically significant differences between men and women's self-reported participation frequency in various committee activities, men contributed significantly more hours per week to committee activities, facilitated meetings more frequently, and were more willing to lead meetings. Based on this leadership gap, we examine the sufficiency of a gender quota to promote equal leadership opportunities for women. We find that realizing the vision of a gender quota is conditional on how individuals are represented on community-based environmental committees as well as how individuals participate in committee activities.
• Krell, N., Giroux, S., Guido, Z., Hannah, C., Lopus, S., Caylor, K., & Evans, T. (2021). Smallholder farmers' use of mobile phone services in central Kenya. Climate and Development, 13(3). doi:10.1080/17565529.2020.1748847
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  Information and services delivered through mobile phones, ‘m-services', have transformative potential to provide rural African farmers with important agro-meteorological information. However, a greater understanding is needed regarding the types of m-services available to farmers, how farmers access that information, and possible factors affecting m-service use. With a study of smallholder farming communities in central Kenya, we examine factors affecting the likelihood of Kenyan farmers’ adoption of m-services specifically related to agriculture and livestock information, buying and selling products, and alerts about agricultural or livestock activities. According to a survey of 577 farming households, 98% of respondents own a mobile phone. Approximately 25% use it to access information about agriculture and livestock, 23% access information about buying and selling products, and 18% receive alerts. Personal smartphone ownership increases the likelihood of m-services use (p
• Guido, Z., Zimmer, A., Lopus, S., Hannah, C., Gower, D., Waldman, K., Krell, N., Sheffield, J., Caylor, K., & Evans, T. (2020). Farmer forecasts: Impacts of seasonal rainfall expectations on agricultural decision-making in Sub-Saharan Africa. Climate Risk Management, 30. doi:10.1016/j.crm.2020.100247
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  Seasonal climate variability frequently undermines farm yields, reduces food availability, and lowers income. This is particularly evident among small-scale agricultural producers in both irrigated and non-irrigated agroecosystems in the Global South where maize cultivars constitute a critical component of food production. In these systems, farmers make climate-sensitive decisions that include the selection of late- and/or early-maturing seed varieties, the diversity of seed varieties sown, and when to plant. Farmers’ expectations of future rainfall would therefore seem to be critical determinants of agricultural outcomes and foreshadow climate impacts. However, few studies have quantified the linkages between on-farm decisions and farmer seasonal predictions. We report on detailed household and phone surveys of 501 smallholder farmers in central Kenya based on the 2018 growing seasons and expectations for the 2019 March-April-May growing season. We show that farmers’ expectations of the upcoming seasonal rainfall have important associations with selections of seed maturity varieties and the number of maturing varieties farmers expect to plant and less important associations with the seeds’ planting dates. Furthermore, we show that 79% of the farmers form an expectation of the future seasonal climate and about two-thirds of them formed expectations based on a heuristic that connects the past climate to future seasonal conditions. More problematically, one-third of the farmers formed their rainfall expectation based on the prior season, and we show that no such correlation exists in observational data nor is correlation of seasonal rainfall supported by current understanding of climate variability. These results highlight the challenges farmers face in anticipating seasonal rainfall, which has implications for crop diversification and choices to adopt drought tolerant cultivars. The results suggest that farmers’ expectations of upcoming seasonal climate are important measures of farm decision-making.
• Hannah, C. (2018). When the Canals Run Dry: New Institutions and the Collective Governance of Irrigation Systems in Tajikistan. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
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  Dissertation.
• Xenarios, S., Smakhtin, V., Sehring, J., Schmidt‐Vogt, D., Tsani, S., Hannah, C., & Μichalena, E. (2018). Water-Energy-Food Nexus and Environment in Central Asia. Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems (WEFE) Nexus and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). doi:10.2760/867467
• Johnson, M., Hannah, C., Acton, L., Popovici, R., Karanth, K., & Weinthal, E. (2014). Network environmentalism: Citizen scientists as agents for environmental advocacy. Global Environmental Change, 29. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.10.006
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  Citizen science - public participation of non-scientists in scientific research - has become an important tool for monitoring and evaluating local and global environmental change. Citizen science projects have been shown to enable large-scale data collection, increase scientific literacy, and monitor environmental quality. However, few studies have examined the individual-level motivations and impacts of citizen science participation. We employ an exploratory multi-method approach (on-line surveys, a focus-group session, informal interviews, and descriptive statements) to evaluate the experiences of citizen scientists volunteering with two conservation organizations based in Bangalore, India. Our findings suggest that citizen science may contribute to increased environmental awareness among the general public. In particular, we identify a three-step process whereby highly motivated individuals, or environmental opinion leaders, seek out citizen science opportunities due to an interest in one or more environmental issues; gain expertise through citizen science participation; and diffuse acquired skills and knowledge to peers through social networks, education of other non-scientist Indian citizens, and/or changes in career or education trajectories. As a result, citizen scientists in India promote environmental principles through an active environmental advocacy network.