Urban Development and the Increasing Trend of Flood Risk in Gombe Metropolis, Nigeria

Abstract

The world's population is quickly becoming more urbanized as the world witnessed a rapid urban population growth. Gombe Metropolis being one of the urban areas of Nigeria suffers the consequences of frequent annual flooding causing an unpropitious effect on the populace in many parts of the metropolis. These urbanization dynamics has led to a rapid urban growth through conversion of vegetated cover, open spaces, farmlands and bare lands into the built-up environment. As a consequence flood risk in the city has been increasing in recent years and approaches and efforts by both public and government to control and mitigate the flood risk have not been fully successful. Thus, this paper strives to examine and estimate the urban development variables influencing the increasing flood risk and the frequency of floods in Gombe Metropolis. Basically, field survey such as questionnaire survey, correlation, and regression analysis was carried out to find answers to the research problem. The result obtained from the questionnaire survey was utilized to establish a statistically relationship between flood risk, and the set of independent variables including social vulnerability factors, geographical factors and urban development factors using Spearman's Correlation and Multi-Linear Regression model. The paper was able to reveal that urban development dynamics are responsible for the seasonal floods and the increasing flood risk in Gombe Metropolis. The most important variables influencing flood risk are poor flood control measures, inadequate and narrow drainage facilities, lack of obtaining building plan approval, poor housing type as well as poor management of solid waste.