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The interplay of top-down planning and adaptive self-organization in an African floodplain

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Abstract

Natural floodplains are complex social-ecological systems in which human livelihoods are tightly coupled with flooding dynamics. In this paper, we argue that hydraulic planning in such systems, including to mitigate extreme floods, must consider three key features of adaptive self-organizing systems in floodplains - connectivity, learning feedbacks, and rhythms - to support the resilience of floodplain communities to extreme floods. We illustrate this argument with a case study of the Logone Floodplain, Cameroon. Based on hydrological data, ethnographic research and a series of focus group interviews with floodplain villagers, we analyze the interplay of top-down planning and adaptive self-organization in response to two extreme floods in 2012 and 2015. We show that recent top-down strategies of hydraulic control in the floodplain have led to more hydraulic uncertainty for local populations, and curtailed the conditions for sustainable self-organization in the floodplain.

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Acknowledgements

The research for this article was financially supported by the National Science Foundation, Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems Program (BCS- 1211986). We want to thank Aboukar Edouard, Moumoum Mahamat, Moussa Barka and Adam Afding for assisting with the focus groups interviews, and people from the villages of Lahaï, Padmangaï, Araïnaba, Gala, Sara-Sara and Malazina who took part in the research. We also thank Alejandro Camargo and Luisa Cortesi for review of a previous draft, and organizers of the International Conference on Chadian Lake Ecosystems (GELT, N’Djamena, April 2017) for engaging discussions around the topic of the paper. We thank the Chadian Ministry for Environment and Water for Logone River discharge data, and two reviewers for their helpful feedback.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Griffith University Australian Rivers Institute, Nathan, Qld 4111, Australia

    Sarah Laborde

  2. Association Camerounaise pour l’Education Environnementale (ACEEN), Maroua, Cameroun

    Aboukar Mahamat

  3. Department of Anthropology, The Ohio State University, 174 W 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH, 43210-1106, USA

    Mark Moritz

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  1. Sarah Laborde
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Correspondence to Sarah Laborde.

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Laborde, S., Mahamat, A. & Moritz, M. The interplay of top-down planning and adaptive self-organization in an African floodplain. Hum Ecol 46, 171–182 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-018-9977-y

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