Building climate change resilience through bottom-up adaptation to flood risk in Warri, Nigeria

Abstract

The problem of flooding in Warri, Nigeria is as old as the city itself. What has changed in recent years is the rapidly increasing magnitude and frequency of floodwater retention pools on urban streets as urban development expanded into low-lying swamplands within the city. Through the process of community urban risk assessments, urban flood zone occupants acknowledge the growing problem of on-street flood retention pools in a city once dominated by problems with off-street flood retention pools. A factor analysis of the perceived causes of flooding shows that Warri residents believe that human activities that reduced the floodwater storage capacity of its natural drainage sinks (i.e., its swamplands), violated building codes, changed local water levels, altered low-lying mangrove swamp terrain, and eliminated drainage facilities are responsible for the increasing retention of floodwater pools on city streets in the last few decades. Such local stock of flood knowledge has implications for a local participatory approach to community adaptations and mitigation methods to reduce urban flood risks from climate change and uncontrolled urban expansion. Local community adaptation choices guide how flood-affected residents cope with urban floods, especially how they use and alter their living space and respond to emergencies. However, such community views are often ignored by experts seeking solutions to flooding. If the views of flood zone occupants begin to inform flood adaptation choices, proposed solutions to flooding problems would be more likely to receive local support and acceptance, thus making the bottom-up solutions developed in this paper easier to implement and sustain. Once a well-formulated grassroots adaptation strategy for urban flood risk management for resiliency becomes the base for action, a more resilient national policy is sure to succeed, especially in low-income and lower-middle-income countries where informal settlement is the case and the role of government in flood management is still minimal.