Understanding flood risk perceptions and motivations for damage mitigation

The case of Kampala, Uganda

Bibliographic Data

ID5817249
AuthorsSimbarashe Chereni (0000-0001-9941-3451, corresponding author)
Year2022
Publication date2022-05-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeTHESIS
PublisherUniversity Library/University of Twente (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.3990/1.9789036553896
OpenAlexW4225372458
ISBN9789036553896
LanguageEN
References cited51

Globally, the damage caused by floods is increasing because of rising urbanisation and climate change. In developing world cities, the impacts of these floods are wide-reaching because of high levels of vulnerability, unplanned development (usually in environmentally sensitive areas), and the weak enforcement of existing by-laws and planning standards by some local authorities. This is exacerbated by high poverty levels, with a big part of the population living on less than a dollar per day. The economy is also highly reliant on informal activities in which micro small and medium enterprises contribute a big percentage of employment, yet they operate in the open and lack access to lines of credit which are critical for resilience buildingBy and large, the problem of flooding has been tackled using city-wide engineering solutions, which have proved to be inadequate, and burdensome to local authorities, especially in the developing world cities. Local-level protective measures by households, businesses, and communities, have become integral in augmenting city-wide efforts. In supporting local level self-protective efforts, it is key to understand their motivations for doing it and vice versa. While scholars have done much in this direction, very little effort has been applied in Africa.Cities in the developing world are also facing governance problems that militate against revenue generation and implementation of planning standards. Governance models promoted by international development agencies are proving to be problematic and more innovative and pragmatic governance models and evaluative frameworks are needed. Moreover, rapid innovative ways of researching resilience-building efforts in the developing world cities are needed to close the data gap between the developing world and the developed world.I addressed these problems by carrying out a case study of three neighbourhoods in Kampala - a city which faces recurrent flash floods and has in the past 6 years undergone governance reform.In chapter 2, I examined the influence of governance rearrangements from a decentralised system to a hybrid system, on the performance of the city administration on flood risk mitigation. I adapted a Water Governance Assessment Framework to measure the anticipated changes. A positive change was established in flood mitigation because of improved revenue generation and intensity in the implementation of planning standardsIn Chapter 3, I provided a research fieldwork management technique (Extended Briefing and Debriefing Technique) which can help carry out rapid surveys with multi-lingual research assistants in cross-language/national settings. Researchers can apply this technique to counter financial barriers to more studies of this nature in other developing world cities.Chapters four and five document the influencing factors of threat and coping appraisal respectively, among households. Flood mitigation efforts by the government, coupled with the transient nature of informal settlements, negatively influence threat appraisal.Regarding coping appraisal by households, first, income negatively influences perceptions of self-efficacy for lower-cost structural measures because, in informal economies, those with lower incomes tend to do manual jobs themselves. Second, our findings from the affluent neighbourhood confirm what past studies report - that higher education is associated with lower perceptions of self-efficacy for structural measures by contrast with what was found in the slum areas. Here too, we expect that income is playing a role since it is correlated with education level. Third, social capital does not necessarily lead to perceptions of a lower cost of implementing non-structural measures, which may signal weak social networks. Fourth, instead of past flood damage motivating households to do more to protect themselves in the future, we see evidence that such events incapacitate them and undermine their sense of resilience. This suggests that low severity but high-frequency floods, such as those in Kampala, can have significant impacts on the resilience of affected communities which should not be underestimated in flood risk reduction strategies and programsBusiness perceptions about flood risk and coping, and motivations to self-protect, are presented in Chapter 6. micro-enterprises were found to be more likely to implement mitigation measures compared to small enterprises contradicting two past studies in the United Kingdom in two states of the USA. A probable reason found behind such relations is that more than half of the small businesses had mitigation measures already in place at the time of the study. This highlights the importance of time in such studies and perhaps indicates why there are mixed results in the literature.The businesses that rent their premises were more likely to implement mitigation measures compared to those that own. In Kampala, business tenants may be more self-reliant in this respect; they may have little confidence that the property owner will invest in such measures given their low incomes and the lack of legal instruments that require owners to invest to protect their tenants.Having experienced flooding did not motivate businesses to implement flood mitigation measures. The financial impacts were significant enough to show a change in mitigation behaviour unlike property damage and health issues, but it is important to note that most of the financial impacts include costs incurred due to hospital bills and property/goods damages. Also, while floods may be frequent in our three study areas they are, mostly not extreme so major property damage and health impacts may be quite rare.The businesses that are more willing to spend on mitigation measures are more likely to implement such measures. The influence of coping appraisal elements was not consistent across the nine mitigation measures analysed in this research, and not all were significant contributors to the models predicting the mitigation behaviour.Government actions, like the expansion of the primary drainage channel in Bwaise III which was completed in 2013, increased the confidence among local businesses about the measure 'clearing drainage' relative to Natete where such action has not yet been undertaken, despite the approval of a Drainage Master Plan in 2002. Such capital investments in drainage infrastructure are important elements of the flood reduction strategy of Kampala, though the shortage of funding often means long lead times for implementation, and the lack of attention and funds for drainage maintenance may compromise the effectiveness of the measure for long-term flood protection, even in Bwaise III

Business · Corporate governance · Developing country · Economic growth · Economics · Environmental planning · Flood myth · Geography · Population · Poverty · Resilience · Urbanization · Vulnerability · Flood Risk Assessment and Management · Urban and Rural Development Challenges · Finance