IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/nathaz/v99y2019i2d10.1007_s11069-019-03792-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Health vulnerability to flood-induced risks of households in flood-prone informal settlements in the Coastal City of Mombasa, Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • Fredrick Okoth Okaka

    (University of Venda)

  • Beneah D. O. Odhiambo

    (University of Venda)

Abstract

Floods have serious consequences on community well-being and health. This study was intended to address the health vulnerability of households in flood prone informal settlements in the coastal city of Mombasa in Kenya and their adaptation measures. Mombasa City has a history of floods, in the recent past, significant severe incidences of flooding events have already been experienced. However, there is dearth of evidence regarding vulnerability of households living in informal settlements in the city to the health risks of flooding and households’ coping mechanisms. The study participants were randomly drawn from three purposively selected informal settlements in Mombasa City. Health vulnerability was assessed in terms of flood exposure, flood sensitivity, and flood adaptive capacity. While adaptation measures were explored based on the autonomous steps that household have adapted in response to flooding. Primary data were collected using questionnaires, Key Informant Interviews and Focus Group Discussions. The findings showed that up to 40.8% of the households had a high level of vulnerability, 46.9% had a medium level, while only 12.3% had low level of vulnerability. The findings also showed that household characteristics, water, sanitation and environmental risk factors had an impact on the level of household vulnerability. As coping mechanisms, households had taken some adaptation measures like clearing trenches to unblock drainage channels and piling sand bags around the house. The study concludes that for poor people living in flood prone areas in urban setting, flood early warnings, flood preventive actions and long term mitigation strategies need to be strengthened since they are exposed to greater health problems. The findings of the study are expected to help communities and local support agencies to identify weaknesses, especially in adaptive capacities, and to indicate ways of reducing future health vulnerability of residents of informal settlements to flooding.

Suggested Citation

  • Fredrick Okoth Okaka & Beneah D. O. Odhiambo, 2019. "Health vulnerability to flood-induced risks of households in flood-prone informal settlements in the Coastal City of Mombasa, Kenya," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 99(2), pages 1007-1029, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:99:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s11069-019-03792-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s11069-019-03792-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-019-03792-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11069-019-03792-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caroline Moser & Andrew Norton & Alfredo Stein & Sophia Georgieva, 2010. "Pro-Poor Adaptation to Climate Change in Urban Centers : Case Studies of Vulnerability and Resilience in Kenya and Nicaragua," World Bank Publications - Reports 3001, The World Bank Group.
    2. Roger Few, 2003. "Flooding, vulnerability and coping strategies: local responses to a global threat," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 3(1), pages 43-58, January.
    3. Caroline Moser & Andrew Norton & Alfredo Stein & Sophia Georgieva, 2010. "Pro-Poor Urban Adaptation to Climate Change : Based on Case Studies in Kenya and Nicaragua," World Bank Publications - Reports 11089, The World Bank Group.
    4. Deressa, Temesgen T. & Hassan, Rashid M. & Ringler, Claudia, 2009. "Assessing household vulnerability to climate change: The case of farmers in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia," IFPRI discussion papers 935, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. S. A. Mashi & A. I. Inkani & Oghenejeabor Obaro & A. S. Asanarimam, 2020. "Community perception, response and adaptation strategies towards flood risk in a traditional African city," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 103(2), pages 1727-1759, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christophe Béné & Derek Headey & Lawrence Haddad & Klaus Grebmer, 2016. "Is resilience a useful concept in the context of food security and nutrition programmes? Some conceptual and practical considerations," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 8(1), pages 123-138, February.
    2. Manoj Roy & Simon Guy & David Hulme & Ferdous Jahan, 2011. "Poverty and climate change in urban Bangladesh (CLIMURB): an analytical framework," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 14811, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    3. Md. Zakir Hossain & Md. Ashiq Ur Rahman, 2018. "Adaptation to climate change as resilience for urban extreme poor: lessons learned from targeted asset transfers programmes in Dhaka city of Bangladesh," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 407-432, February.
    4. Arun S. Malik & Stephen C. Smith, 2012. "Adaptation To Climate Change In Low-Income Countries: Lessons From Current Research And Needs From Future Research," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(02), pages 1-22.
    5. Loan Thi Phan & Sue Ching Jou & Jun-Hua Lin, 2019. "Gender Inequality and Adaptive Capacity: The Role of Social Capital on the Impacts of Climate Change in Vietnam," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-20, February.
    6. Manoj Roy & Ferdous Jahan & David Hulme, 2012. "Community and institutional responses to the challenges facing poor urban people in Khulna, Bangladesh in an era of climate change," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 16312, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    7. Arabella Fraser, 2017. "The missing politics of urban vulnerability: The state and the co-production of climate risk," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(12), pages 2835-2852, December.
    8. repec:gwi:wpaper:2012-08 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Kian Goh, 2020. "Flows in formation: The global-urban networks of climate change adaptation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(11), pages 2222-2240, August.
    10. Javier E. Baez & Dorothy Kronick & Andrew D. Mason, 2013. "Rural Households in a Changing Climate," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 28(2), pages 267-289, August.
    11. Graham, Sonia & Barnett, Jon & Mortreux, Colette & Hurlimann, Anna & Fincher, Ruth, 2018. "Local values and fairness in climate change adaptation: Insights from marginal rural Australian communities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 332-343.
    12. Jaimie Kim B. Arias & Ma. Emilinda T. Mendoza & Vicente G. Ballaran, Jr. & Rowena A. Dorado, 2016. "Household Vulnerability to Climate Change in Selected Municipalities in Laguna, Philippines," EEPSEA Research Report rr20160331, Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA), revised Mar 2016.
    13. Etwire, Prince Maxwell, 2020. "The impact of climate change on farming system selection in Ghana," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    14. Thuy Linh Nguyen & Chisato Asahi & Thi An Tran & Ngoc Hanh Le, 2022. "Indicator-based approach for flood vulnerability assessment in ancient heritage city of Hoi An, Central Region of Vietnam," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 114(2), pages 2357-2385, November.
    15. Asif Ishtiaque & Nurul Islam Nazem, 2017. "Household-level disaster-induced losses and rural–urban migration: Experience from world’s one of the most disaster-affected countries," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 86(1), pages 315-326, March.
    16. Rosinger, Asher Y., 2018. "Household water insecurity after a historic flood: Diarrhea and dehydration in the Bolivian Amazon," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 192-202.
    17. Lamek Nahayo & Christophe Mupenzi & Alphonse Kayiranga & Fidele Karamage & Felix Ndayisaba & Enan Muhire Nyesheja & Lanhai Li, 2017. "Early alert and community involvement: approach for disaster risk reduction in Rwanda," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 86(2), pages 505-517, March.
    18. Camila Flórez Bossio & James Ford & Danielle Labbé, 2019. "Adaptive capacity in urban areas of developing countries," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 157(2), pages 279-297, November.
    19. Alauddin, Mohammad & Sarker, Md Abdur Rashid, 2014. "Climate change and farm-level adaptation decisions and strategies in drought-prone and groundwater-depleted areas of Bangladesh: an empirical investigation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 204-213.
    20. Million Sileshi & Reuben Kadigi & Khamaldin Mutabazi & Stefan Sieber, 2019. "Analysis of households’ vulnerability to food insecurity and its influencing factors in East Hararghe, Ethiopia," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 8(1), pages 1-17, December.
    21. Ashfaq Ahmad Shah & Jingzhong Ye & Muhammad Abid & Raza Ullah, 2017. "Determinants of flood risk mitigation strategies at household level: a case of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, Pakistan," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 88(1), pages 415-430, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:99:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s11069-019-03792-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.