Assessment of Flood Risk Perception and Coping Strategies in Flood Prone Areas: The Case of Msasani Bonde La Mpunga, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

In recent years, perception of flood risks has become an important topic to policy makers concerned with flood risk management and safety issues. Knowledge of public risk perception is considered a crucial aspect in flood risk management as it steers the development of effective and efficient flood mitigation measures. The aim of this study is to assess the flood risk perception of residents of Msasani Bonde la Mpunga in Dar es Salaam city and identify the residents coping strategies to flood hazard. The research employed both quantitative and qualitative techniques for data collection using household structured questionnaires and Focus Group Discussions (FGD). Flood awareness, flood experience, degree of worry are the variables used in this study to assess flood risk perception level among residents of Msasani Bonde la Mpunga neighborhood. Results show that flood risk perception was high among the household respondents of Msasani Bonde la Mpunga. Women in particular had high flood risk perception than men. Furthermore, a correlation analysis revealed that flood risk perception had a positive correlation with flood coping strategies, which implies high level of household respondent’s perception to floods may lead to household resident’s adoption of flood coping strategies. Keywords: flood risk perceptions, coping strategies, flood risk managemen

Introducing experiences from African pastoralist communities to cope with climate change risks, hazards and extremes: Fostering poverty reduction

From Elsevier via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: accepted 2020-06-19, issue date 2020-07-05Article version: AMPublication status: AcceptedAbstract Pastoralist communities all over Africa have been facing a variety of social and economic problems, as well as climate risks and hazards for many years. They have also been suffering from climate change and extremes events, along with a variety of weather and climate threats, which pose many challenges to herders. On the one hand, pastoralist communities have little influence on policy decisions; however, on the other hand, they suffer to a significant extent from such policies, which limit their options for sustainable development and poverty alleviation. Also, the socio-cultural legacy of herders, and their role in food security and provision of ecosystem services, as well as their efforts towards climate change adaptation, are little documented, particularly in Eastern and Southern African countries. There is a perceived need for international studies on the risks and impacts of climate change and extreme events on the sustainability of pastoralist communities in Africa, especially in eastern and southern Africa. Based on the need to address this research gap, this paper describes the climate change risks and challenges that climate threats pose to the sustainability and livelihoods of pastoralist communities in eastern and southern Africa. Also, it discusses the extent to which such problems affect their well-being and income. Additionally, the paper reports on the socioeconomic vulnerability indices at country-level. Also, it identifies specific problems pastoralists face, and a variety of climate adaptation strategies to extreme events through field survey among pastoralist communities in a sample of five countries, namely Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The study has shown that the long-term sustainability of the livelihoods of pastoral communities is currently endangered by climate change and the risks and hazards it brings about, which may worsen poverty among this social group. Also, the study suggests that a more systematic and structured approach is needed when assessing the climate vulnerability of individual pastoral communities, since this may help in designing suitable disaster risk reduction strategies. Moreover, the paper shows that it is also necessary to understand better the socio-ecological systems (SES) of the various communities, and how their livelihoods are influenced by the changing conditions imposed by a changing climate