Households’ perception of flood risk and health impact of exposure to flooding in flood-prone informal settlements in the coastal city of Mombasa

• Published date: 19 August 2019
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCCSM-03-2018-0026
• Pages: 592-606
• Date: 19 August 2019
• Author: Fredrick Okoth Okaka,Beneah D.O. Odhiambo
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Environmental issues,Climate change

Households’perception of f‌lood

risk and health impact of

exposure to f‌looding in

f‌lood-prone informal settlements

in the coastal city of Mombasa

Fredrick Okoth Okaka and Beneah D.O. Odhiambo

Department of Geography and GISc, University of Venda,

Thohoyandou, South Africa

Abstract

Purpose –Mombasa City in Kenya is one of the most vulnerabletowns to f‌lood risk due to its low-lying

coastal location. Those at the highest risk in the city are households living in the f‌lood-prone informal

settlements. However, littleis known about the perception of these vulnerable households to the f‌lood risks

and its health impacts, which is important for developing effective long-term adaptation strategies. The

purpose of this paperis to examine the general perception of the residents regardingf‌lood risks, its impact on

their healthand their adaptation strategies.

Design/methodology/approach –This study surveyed 390 randomly selected households in three

informal settlements in the city of Mombasausing a semi-structured questionnaire. This was supplemented

with six focus groupdiscussions (FDGs) and six key informant interviews (KIIs).

Findings –The majority of respondenthouseholds perceive future f‌looding as high risk or severewith high

negative health impact.Despite this, many do not evacuate their homes because they do not have alternative

places to move to. Flooding was indicated to have had a negative physical and mental health impact on

members of households.Although majority of households had taken someadaptation measures, most of these

were short term, mainly due to f‌inancial constraints,lack of knowledge and government support. Perception

of f‌lood risk andgender were found to have a strong inf‌luence on taking long-termadaptation measures at the

householdlevel.

Practical implications –Reducing f‌lood risk and averting its health consequences in f‌lood-prone

informal settlements require empowering and supporting those living in these areas with ability to initiate

long-termadaptation measures and creating awareness aboutfuture risks.

Originality/value –This study providesevidence about how residents of f‌lood-prone informal settlements

perceive f‌lood risk and how the exposures to perennial f‌looding impact their health. The paper augments

existingknowledge of f‌lood risk in poor urban neighborhoodsof developing countries.

Keywords Perception, Health, Flooding, Informal settlements

Paper type Research paper

© Fredrick Okoth Okaka and Beneah D.O. Odhiambo. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited.

This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may

reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and

non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full

terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

The authors wish to thank the Directorate of Research, University of Venda, South Africa, for

providing research funding for this research project.

IJCCSM

11,4

592

Received29 March 2018

Revised1 September 2018

3 November2018

30December 2018

Accepted3 March 2019

InternationalJournal of Climate

ChangeStrategies and

Management

Vol.11 No. 4, 2019

pp. 592-606

EmeraldPublishing Limited

1756-8692

DOI 10.1108/IJCCSM-03-2018-0026

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/1756-8692.htm