Flood Impacts on Household Livelihoods and Its Mitigation Strategies: Focus of Gelana Woreda, Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

This study assessed the impact of floods on household livelihoods and mitigation strategies in Gelana Woreda, Oromia, Ethiopia. The study's goals included determining the contributing cause, calculating the flood's impact, evaluating household mitigation activities in reaction to the threat of flooding, and evaluating how household livelihoods were impacted by the risk of a flood. The results of the study indicate that different flood effect factors cause interpersonal flood variability to increase slightly. Over a ten-year period, seasonal migration (16.6%), disruption of human health (3%), and loss of life (1.5%) were the three most common shocks from flood-induced disasters in the study area; heavy rain/flash flooding (29.7%) and river flooding (49.2%) were the two main causes of these shocks. Based on the GIS-generated flood map, 46.5% of the kebeles chosen for the Gelana district were categorized as having a high risk of flooding; marginally more than 2.3%; and the remaining 22.1%, 19.5%, and 2.3% had extremely high, low, and moderately hazardous levels, respectively, indicating a greater risk of flooding. Whereas Jirme and Bore have areas with extremely low and medium flood threats, the areas surrounding Kersa, Metari, and Shamole Shida are classified as having highly hazardous and moderate hazardous flood danger. However, in the research region, the main obstacles to flood mitigation were informational gaps (15.6%), lack of funding (28.6%), absence of government support (18.6%), and reluctance to join farmer associations (14.1%). Raising farmers' knowledge of agricultural technologies, structural mitigation, environmental restoration, ease of access to credit services, diversification of income streams, building farmers' capacity, promoting multiple strategies as the main flood mitigation strategies, and raising household standards in the study area are therefore important.