Flood risk perception, disaster preparedness and response in flood-prone urban communities of Rivers State

Abstract

Rapid urbanisation is contributing to increasing societal vulnerability to disaster. This study aimed at exploring the perception on flood risk and ascertaining the determinants of disaster preparedness among residents in flood-prone urban communities. Descriptive statistics and discriminant regression model were employed on primary data collected from 240 urban households across five communities at risk of flooding in the study area. The results showed that most households had low awareness of flood risk and exhibit low levels of adaptive capacity, having adopted little or no measures to deal with disaster floods. Also, awareness of flood risk was observed to discriminate the most between the two groups of adopters and nonadopters of flood preventive and management measures (proxy for disaster preparedness), followed by flood risk perception, age, location and household size.Contribution: The study suggests an integrated approach (a combination of preventive, protective and control measures) by all stakeholders, including government and other relevant bodies, increasing public awareness of flood risk and its attending effects for greater responsiveness, supporting communities in regular clearing of drainage areas and strictly regulating the construction of buildings, particularly in flood prone areas.

An overview of Volume 14, No 1 (2022)

“…Given that disaster risk management is a priority in policy and governance, we are glad to see several articles analysing the degree to which our systems of care are succeeding in reducing risk and planning for the future. The collection features analysis of multi-issue policy coherence (Zembe, Nemakonde & Chipangura 2022 ), institutional ecosystems (Ichsan 2022 ; Lassa, Nappoe & Sulistyo 2022 ), resilience planning processes (Ghafuri & Koohpaei 2022 ; Nkamisa et al 2022 ; Matshusa & Leonard 2022 ; Raharjo, Sarjana & Safitri 2022 ; Terblanche, De Sousa & Van Niekerk 2022 ; Atanga & Tankpa 2022 ) economic sustainability (Mavhura & Aryal 2022 ; Isa & Mardalis 2022 ), education (Aiyub Kadir & Nurdin 2022 , Dimitrova & Mokhele 2022 ) and communication (Dehghani et al 2022 ), overall development agendas (Mthembu & Nhamo 2022 ; Elum & Lawal 2022 ), insurance (Mushonga & Mishi 2022 ) and the integration of Sustainable Development Goals into risk management (Louw & Esterhuyzen 2022 ).…”