Authors:
Jumbo, S. A*, Obafemi, A. A. and Eludoyin, O. S., Nigeria |
Abstract:
Despite flooding being one of the most common and destructive natural hazards, the risk it poses
is systematically underestimated and still increasing due to climate change and growing
concentrations of people and assets in flood-prone areas. The study carried out a flood risk
assessment, climate adaptation and mitigation strategies of communities in Edo State, Nigeria.
With the aid of questionnaires and GIS techniques, the flood risk level of communities within
Edo states were analysed by capturing all the components of flood risk which include exposure
and vulnerability. All analysis was carried out using descriptive statistics and Analytical
Hierarchy Process (AHP) to determine the extent of the communities’ flood. The extent of risk
showed that 778 communities were captured in risk analysis, 503 (64.65%) of the communities
were found within low flood risk level while 150 (19.28%) communities and 125 (16.07%)
communities were found to be within medium and high flood risk level respectively. The climate
variables showed some level of fluctuation while the adopted adaptation measures such as
expansion of floodplain and wetlands was based on political will of administrators, and the
measure was perceived less effective. There was high level of awareness about government
mitigation measures in the area and the main mitigation measure by government is construction
of drainage system which was perceived to be effective. It was therefore concluded that all the
adopted attributes contributed to the establishment of flood risk of Edo State and was categories
into high, medium and low flood risk level. Hence, there is need to intensify the planning and
execution of disaster management programs with the support of the produced flood risk map.
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