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

4. Discussion and implications The current study attempted to explore farmers’ beliefs about climate change, their concerns about the potential impacts of climate change, and their views about different obstacles to adaptation in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Analysis of the farmers’ beliefs about cli- mate change reveals that they believe that climate change is happening. They are also con- vinced that there is ample evidence to support the occurrence of climate change. Although, a small proportion of the farmers express that the ongoing climate change is either happening due to natural changes or both natural changes and anthropogenic factors, however, a majority holds the belief that climate change is happening mainly due to anthropogenic activities. These findings are consistent with several past studies [40,41,54,57] that reported that farmers are generally convinced about the occurrence of climate change. However, the current study dif- fers on certain aspects from a previous study conducted by Alotaibi et al., [54] in the Jazan region located in the southwest of Saudi Arabia. The farmers of the Jazan region believed that climate change is occurring mainly due to natural changes. On the other hand, only a small Table 7. Kruskal-Wallis test for differences in farmers’ beliefs, concerns, and views regarding adaptation obstacles. Variables Beliefs about climate change Concerns about potential problems Views about adaptation obstacles Mean Rank Chi-Square p-Value Mean Rank Chi-Square p-Value Mean Rank Chi-Square p-Value Age (years)

20–40 (n = 23) 37.98 2.0 0.57 41.61 2.38 0.49 42.91 1.68 0.64 41–50 (n = 16) 42.49 43.53 37.06 51–60 (n = 25) 37.40 34.80 43.50 Above 60 (n = 16) 46.53 44.78 35.78 Education level Below High School (n = 12) 30.54 6.25 0.18 41.79 2.07 0.72 42.83 2.55 0.63 High School (n = 16) 37.09 46.03 33.69 Diploma (n = 13) 39.85 36.65 46.50 Bachelor (n = 28) 48.48 41.05 39.59 Graduate School (n = 11) 36.77 35.36 43.09 Farming experience (years) Less than 10 (n = 20) 46.75 4.63 0.20 39.73 0.20 0.97 47.85 6.70 0.08 11–20 (n = 19) 39.16 40.03 38.03 21–30 (n = 23) 43.24 42.33 44.48 Above 30 (n = 18) 31.47 39.53 29.86 Farm size (hectares) Less than 1 ha (n = 31) 47.52 4.91 0.08 40.87 0.01 0.99 40.50 0.40 0.81 1–4 ha (n = 19) 37.97 40.05 43.16 Above 4 ha (n = 30) 34.85 40.40 38.82 Farm ownership Rented (n = 15) 38.60 6.83 0.03� 44.10 0.45 0.79 30.63 3.41 0.18 Shared (n = 13) 55.73 40.27 41.31 Owner (n = 52) 37.24 39.52 43.14 Soil fertility level Low (n = 11) 54.91 5.88 0.053 45.23 1.27 0.53 35.05 1.22 0.54 Average (n = 56) 39.46 40.90 42.34 High (n = 13) 32.77 34.77 37.19 �Significant at 0.05 level. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280838.t007 PLOS ONE Adaptation of climate change among farmers PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280838 January 25, 2023 11 / 20