Vulnerability of human settlements to flood risk in the core area of Ibadan metropolis, Nigeria

Abstract

Flood disasters continue to wreak havoc on the lives of millions of people worldwide, causing death and massive economic losses. In most African cities, residents and their assets are among the most vulnerable to flood risks in the world. The nature and scale of this urban risk are changing because of the dynamic patterns of land use, unplanned growth and impacts of climate change. Flood risk is the product of the flood hazards, the vulnerability and exposure of the people and their physical environment. In order to minimise flood disaster, there is an urgent need to understand, invest in flood disaster risk reduction for resilience and to enhance disaster preparedness for an effective response as articulated in the recent Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. This research utilises a new proposed flood vulnerability assessment framework for flood risk in a traditional community in the heart of Ibadan metropolis, in the context of their households’ exposure, susceptibility and coping capacity through a well-designed questionnaire survey. The study uses descriptive and inferential statistics techniques to provide a detailed understanding of the vulnerability profiles of the community and the levels of residents’ preparedness to mitigate the flood risk. The results of the statistical analysis show that there is a significant relationship between residents’ flood awareness and having previous flood experience, but there is no significant association between their awareness of risk and the level of preparedness for flooding. To minimise exposure and vulnerability to flood risk, we advocate effective adaptation policies to achieve disaster risk reduction and resilience on flood risk rather than focusing merely on reactive measures after disaster strikes.