Factors Affecting People’s Environmental Awareness in the Urban Areas: A case of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

In developing countries, the urban environment is deteriorating over time. In the meantime, people's demand for clean and green residential and recreational places has increased. If so, why has it been hard to keep cities clean and green? This study investigates the level and determinants of environmental awareness in Addis Ababa. From three sub-cities, three-stage sampling procedure has been applied to select 293 respondents. A five-point Likert scale was used to classify the levels of awareness and an ordered logit model was applied to analyze its determinants. The result shows a high level of knowledge on forest degradation, while a medium level of attitude on the possible cause of acid rain. From the marginal effect result, the probability of low (13%) and medium (25%) levels of environmental awareness increases for the income group of 601 to 1650. Likewise, for the age of 50 to 59, the likelihood of having low and moderate levels of environmental awareness rises by 8% and 11%, respectively. For respondents at TVET educational level, the chance of having low and medium levels of awareness reduces by 8% and 12%, respectively. In conclusion, being in a high-income category and education levels have more probability to a better level of environmental awareness while young respondents have a high probability for better environmental awareness. So, improving the income and access to higher education will assure clean and green cities, particularly in young populated urban areas. Besides formal education, adult education, training, and workshops are alternatives to enhance environmental awareness.