Mainstreaming resilience to flood risk among households in informal settlements in Kisumu City, Kenya

<p>The frequency and severity of flooding in urban areas have escalated in recent years, and the worst affected urban areas are those in Africa. Despite the escalating flood risks accompanied by the growing vulnerability, cities and urban areas in Africa are struggling to build resilience. One of the actors in urban resilience building are the households in the urban settlements. Indeed, their contribution forms an important component of many flood risk response strategies. Nonetheless, the knowledge about this remains limited and is often confined to specific regions or case studies. In this study, we sought to identify the measures put in place to respond to flood risk by the households in Nyamasaria and Manyatta and explored the potential of mainstreaming resilience to flood risk in these settlements. We adopted a survey design. The settlements were purposively sampled, while the sampling procedure for the households involved transect lines established parallel to the major roads within the settlements. A transect walk was made to mark the households, and then simple random sampling was used. Data collection through personal interviews using questionnaires followed. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the primary data. The findings showed that both settlements suffered frequent flood events, with 79 % of households having suffered inundation by floods in the past. About 46 % of the households have put in place flood risk reduction measures, including using sandbags, digging trenches around the houses, and raising floor levels. There were also cases of households temporarily relocating from the risk areas to safer places. The findings showed that the households' response measures were short-term and were aimed at addressing immediate risks. We concluded that the existence of capacities and actions to reduce flood risk among households provides a viable starting point for mainstreaming the resilience to flood risk in these settlements. We therefore recommend that households need to transition from short-term measures to risk-sensitive resilience measures, including flood-resilient designing of buildings, installation of risk-reducing infrastructure, and risk-sensitive urban planning.</p>