Flood Vulnerability Assessment in Rural and Urban Informal Settlements: Case Study of Karonga District and Lilongwe City in Malawi

Abstract

Abstract Flood vulnerability assessment (FVA) informs the disaster risk reduction and preparedness process in both rural and urban areas. However, many floods vulnerable regions like Malawi still lack FVA supporting frameworks in all phases (pre-trans-post disaster). Partly, this is attributed to lack of the evidence-based studies to inform the processes. This study was therefore aimed at assessing households’ flood vulnerability (HFV) in rural and urban areas of Malawi, using case studies of Mtandire Ward in Lilongwe City (LC) and Traditional Authority (T/A) Kilupula of Karonga District (KD). A household survey was used to collect data from a sample of 545 households’ participants. Vulnerability was explored through a combination of underlying vulnerability factors (UVFs)-physical-social-economic-environmental and cultural with vulnerability components (VCs)-exposure-susceptibility and resilience. The UVFs and VCs were agglomerated using binomial multiple logit regression model. Variance independent factor (VIF) was used to check multicollinearity of variables in the regression model. HFV was determined based on flood vulnerability index (FVI). The data were analysed using Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA), artificial neural network (ANN) and STATA. The results reveal a total average score of high vulnerability (0.62) and moderate vulnerability (0.52) on MCA in T/A Kilupula and Mtandire Ward respectively. The results further found low vulnerability to very high vulnerability for the combined UVFs and VCs in the FVI scale range. The study concludes that the determinants of households’ flood vulnerability are in respective order of enviro-exposure, eco-resilience and physio-exposure factors in both study areas. The study recommends that a FVA framework should be applied to promote resilience of communities to mitigate flood risks and support planning and decision-making process in flood risk management.