Farmers’ beliefs and concerns about climate change, and their adaptation behavior to combat climate change in Saudi Arabia

climate change. However, the determination of effect size showed a small effect (Cohen’s d = 0.22). The results of the Kruskal—Wallis test showed that there were no significant differences in farmers’ beliefs, concerns and views about adaptation obstacles due to their age, education level, farming experience, farm size, and soil fertility level. However, significant differences in farmers’ beliefs about climate change were observed due to farm ownership. The farmers who shared the farm were more likely to believe that climate change is occurring than those who owned the farm. Fig 3. Farmers views about adaptation obstacles. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280838.g003 Table 6. Mann Whitney test for differences in beliefs and concerns about climate change and views about adaptation obstacles. Variables Beliefs about climate change Concerns about potential problems Views about adaptation obstacles Mean Rank Mann Whitney U Sig 2-Tail Mean Rank Mann Whitney U Sig 2-Tail Mean Rank Mann Whitney U Sig 2-Tail Membership of agricultural cooperatives Yes (n = 10) 39.65 341.5 0.90 39.45 339.50 0.87 29.65 241.50 0.11 No (n = 70) 40.62 40.65 42.05 Access to extension services Yes (n = 36) 41.65 750.5 0.68 42.33 726.0 0.52 35.40 608.5 0.07 No (n = 44) 39.56 39.0 44.67 Access to agricultural loans Yes (n = 19) 36.39 501.5 0.37 40.21 574.0 0.95 35.66 487.5 0.29 No (n = 61) 41.78 40.59 42.01 Communication with other farmers about climate change Yes (n = 50) 36.46 548.0 0.04� Cohen’s d = 0.22 40.88 731.0 0.85 40.04 727.0 0.81

No (n = 30) 47.23 39.87 41.27 �Significant at 0.05 level. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280838.t006 PLOS ONE Adaptation of climate change among farmers PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280838 January 25, 2023 10 / 20