Hazards are potentially damaging physical event, phenomenon or human activity that may cause loss of live or injury, property damage, social and economic disruption, or environmental degradation. On the other hand, disasters are serious disruptions in the functioning of a community or a society causing widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses that exceed the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources. 10 floods, droughts, tropical cyclones, and storm surges. We designed this study to focus on floods, 2 given that they are ranked amongst the deadliest type of natural (hydro-meteorological) disasters and are responsible for some of the most severe global economic, social and cultural losses and challenges. 7 According to Doocy et al. 8 for instance, around 2.8 billion individuals were affected by flood events between 1980 and 2009, with an estimated 4.6 million rendered homeless. 9 It is anticipated that climate variability will further aggravate, especially, the frequency of floods in the years ahead. 12,13 Currently, floods affect over half a billion people globally every year, a number that is predicted to increase to two billion by 2050. 13 That notwithstanding, it is argued that this estimate is far from being definitive, since only about 65% of the relevant flood cases are reported, studied and cited. Therefore, there is more implicit human suffering due to floods than is explicitly reported. 8 OFDA-CRED 14 ; Tapsell et al. 15 and Boamah et al. 14 have consistently argued that during the last half century until 2002, hydro-meteorologically related disasters accounted for almost three-fifth of the total number of natural disasters that occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa with floods accounting for up to a quarter of them. 9,14,15 Overall, the ripple effects of recurrent floods have been causing serious damages on farmlands, food shortages higher cost of living, separation of families, destruction of cattle and wildlife, reduction in the available space for development and the destruction of the quantity and quality of natural resources especially in developing countries. 16,17 Floods everywhere in the world are difficult to prevent, control or even cope with. The situation is further compounded in sub-Saharan Africa by increasing economic hardship and the inability of most governments to adequately support their citizens in the process. 18 The loss of trust 2 Floods have been variously defined but for the purpose of this study we have operationally defined a flood as a body of water which rises to overflow land which is normally not submerged. There are mainly five types of floods: river flood, flash flood, inland flood, storm surge, coastal flood. 11
