Author(s): Pauline Long’Or Lokidora
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Abstract: Africa is rapidly urbanising, and its population growth is predicted to triple by 2050. The combined pressures of urbanisation and climate change have an influence on the ecosystem and the services it provides. As a result, there are additional dangers, which include, but are not limited to, greater flooding risk, economic disruption, and environmental concerns. Already, hydrological and climatological events have caused damages rising to USD 4.8 trillion worldwide between 1980 and 2018, of which 40.5% and 11.6% (Debele et al., 2019). Wider use of structural and non-structural measures as mitigation measures in Africa remains inadequate. Additionally, poor housing and sanitation problems, prevalent poverty levels raise individual’s reactions and vulnerability to flooding risk and impacts (Ajibade & Tota-Maharaj, 2018). In some most cities, blockage of the existing drainage from either unkempt vegetation exacerbates the problem (Charlesworth, 2017). In a typical storm event, flash floods underpin poverty, insecurity, the risk of ill-health, on top of the existing poor housing causing loss of lives, livelihood, disruption of transport etc. whose recovery process is low. Cities in Africa must develop innovative and adaptive solutions to minimise the effects of growing urbanisation in order to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Evidence suggests that Nature Based Solutions (NbS) have the potential to reduce flooding risk while also delivering other benefits such as biodiversity sustainability, improved sanitation through greywater management, increased water and food security, and reduced climate change impacts (Cohen-Shacham et al., 2019; Seddon et al., 2020). NbS is defined as a collection of integrated ecosystem-associated approaches inspired by and copied from nature, which must sustainably minimize flooding risk and impacts to the society while preserving biodiversity.
Year: 2022