Climate change: A pointer to increased small-scale fisher drowning deaths

Most fishers had substantial experience in the fishing industry at the time of their deaths with more than 75% having fished for over 3 years (Table 2). Only 56.7% were known to be able to swim though. Alcohol (31.2%) and drug (24.1%) use were also common risk factors involved in these incidents (Fig 2, Table 2). Co-occurrence of bad weather and other risk factors Boat and individual risk factors co-occurred with bad weather, meaning multi-faceted risk fac- tors were present. The lowest co-occurrence was with poor boat maintenance (5.08% of fatal incidents involving bad weather also involved poor boat maintenance). The highest was with non-use of life jacket (69.49% of incidents involving bad weather did not use life jacket) (Fig 3). Stakeholder analysis The results of the stakeholder analysis, based on data collected through key informant inter- views with BMU leaders, are shown in Table 3. Table 1. Sociodemographic characteristics of the deceased fishers in Lake Victoria, Kenya. Variable Deceased fisher (N = 141) Percentage or standard deviation Gender Male Female 140 1 99.3% 0.7% Age (years) 32.7 9.3 Education None Primary Secondary Other Not available 1 100 23 3 14 0.7% 70.9% 16.3% 2.1% 9.9% Household size 5.0 3.1 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302397.t001 Fig 2. Frequencies of risk factors linked to drowning deaths around Lake Victoria, Kenya. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302397.g002 PLOS ONE Climate change and small-scale fisher drowning deaths PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302397 May 22, 2024 6 / 16