Climate change is adversely affect ing the livelihood of Ethiopian farmers who depend on rain-fedrnagriculture with differential impacts from place to place, from community to community andrnfrom individual to individual depending on the adaptive capacity of th e systems. Although betterrnknowledge of vulnerability levels, perceptions and adaptation is vital for policy making, not muchrnis studied as to how these inter-related issues impact on the lives of famers from the perspectivesrnof five livelih ood assets. To fill these knowledge gaps, this study focused on three central themes:rndescription of the biophysical and economic characteri stics of the dega, wayna dega and kolarnsites, an assessment of vulnerability levels of farmers in terms of exposure to climate change,rnaccess to five livelihood assets including the adoption of different adaptation methods andrnexamination of fanners ' perceptions and adaptation to climate change. The quantitative andrnqualitative approaches ha ve been used to achieve the objectives of th e study. The biophysical andrneconomic characteristic of the study sites was anal yzed u sing simple regression, different indices,rncoefficient of variation and one-way-Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Livelihood vulnerabilityrnindex was used to ana lyze the vulnerability levels of the surveyed households. The farmers'rnperceptions and adaptation to climate change were assessed using perce ntage, index of adoption,rnand binary logi st ic regression. The results revealed that agro-ecological settings are the mostrnimportant conditions that ha ve created differential vulnerability situations of the households. Thernbiophysical and economic contexts in the dissected landscapes of Abay-Beshilo River Basinsrn(kola sites) , where recurrent droughts, land degradation, low production, and poor access torninfrastructural facilities are serious problems, are found to be worse than in wayna dega and dega.rnCorrespondingly, the livelihood vulnerability indi ces (LV I) indicated th at the kola households arernfound to be more vulnerable by all capital assets and low index of a daptation . By climaticrnexposure index, wayna dega households stood first closely followed by those in kola. Analyses ofrnperceptions and adaptation also revealed that the majority of the farmers had observed an in creasernin temperature and a decreasel erratic rainfall in the three sites . The fanners have adopted differentrnadaptation strategies, but the rate s of their adoption vary by agro-ecology. The most commonrnadaptation strategies are: the use of manure-compost, terracing, replanting, change of pl antingrndates, use of fertilizers (wayna dega and dega), planting different crops, bei ng engaged in nonfarmrnactivities and s hifting to cheaper food items. Of which, the most statistically signifi can trndetenninants of adopting each strategy were agro-ecological zone and famler-to-farmerrnextension. Other significant detenninants of adaptation were: farm size, age, family size, andrnlive stock ownership, access to water, fonnal extension se rvices, and perception of temperaturernand rainfall changes. For building more climate-resilient community the government and otherrnstakeholders should provide appropriate environmental management systems, infrastru cture andrnextension services to the community.