Abstract
Vulnerability assessment remains central in discourses on global climatic change and takes a more pertinent meaning considering that natural disasters in developing countries continue to deeply affect human settlements. In recent years, severe weather events affected the social and economic asset of local populations and challenged local institutions to adapt in the face of increasing seasonal events and also unexpected larger disasters.
The research project CLUVA ‘Climate Change and Urban Vulnerability in Africa’ was launched in December 2010 and involves a multidisciplinary team of European and African scientists who investigate the preparedness and adaptive capacities of large African cities. CLUVA is part of a European Seventh Framework Program which aims are to at developing context-centered methods to assess vulnerability and to increase knowledge on managing climate related risks such as floods and sea level rise.
Important features for vulnerability assessment in CLUVA cities are the increasing severity of the physical damages, the shortcoming of social and technical infrastructure, the complexity of land management/market and the limited capacity of local institutions. Understanding vulnerability in this context implies highlighting and interlinking relevant indicators and/or perceptions encompassed in four main dimensions. The social, institutional, physical and attitudinal causes for the production of vulnerability. A combination of tools investigates how households and communities can resist and cope with, as well as recover from floods.
In this paper we present the conceptual approach of our social-science analysis and first empirical research results from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Preliminary findings show that coping capacities are household-centric and encompass short term actions to conserve and consolidate individual assets. These actions occur through local social networks and, communities. Adaptive capacities and the effectiveness of long term recovering interventions are community-centric and involve a web of formal and informal institutions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
A review on exiting vulnerability indicators was conducted prior to the empirical research in which 39 indicators were proposed to facilitate the assessment of vulnerability. These indicators were evaluated and contextualized to the CLUVA cities and integrated in a model fitting to CLUVA (available at: http://www.cluva.eu/deliverables/CLUVA_D2.11.pdf)
- 2.
Asset based assessments with regard to vulnerability are conducted with the aim at identifying what are the different resources that individuals have [1, 2, 13]. These assessments investigate what the poor possess based on the premise that the more and diverse these assets are the less vulnerable they are. Since the 1990s a number of frameworks and approaches emerged adding to an already extensive literature on asset and rights and entitlements. For example, the Asset Vulnerability Framework [13] regroups an extensive household asset portfolio distinguishing asset types such as labour, human capital, productive assets, household relations and social capital, which aim at demonstrating how the collection of asset interplay with the concept of vulnerability.
References
Barrett C (1999) On Vulnerability, Asset Poverty and Subsidiarity. Working Paper
Chambers R (1995) Poverty and livelihoods: Whose reality counts? Brighton, Discussion Paper No. 347. Institute of Development Studies
Cannon T (1994) Vulnerability analysis and the explanation of “natural” disasters. In: Varley A (ed.) Disasters, development and the environment. John Wiley, Chichester
Cutter S, Boruff B, Shirley W (2003) Social Vulnerability to Environmental Hazards. Soc Sci Quart 84(2):242–261
Government of Burkina Faso, UN, World Bank (2009) Inondations du 1er Septembre 2009 au Burkina Faso. Evaluation des dommages, pertes et besoins de construction, de reconstruction et de releÌvement. Rapport
IFRC (2003) World disasters report, Geneva: International federation of red cross and red crescent societies. www.ifrc.org/publicat/wdr2003/
Fuchs S, Kuhlicke C, Meyer V (2011) Editorial for the special issue: vulnerability to natural hazards-the challenge of integration. Nat Hazards 58/2:609–619. DOI 10.1007/s11069-011-9825-5
Jean-Baptiste N, Kuhlicke C, Kunath A, Kabisch S, (2011) Review and evaluation of existing vulnerability indicators in order to obtain an appropriate set of indicators for assessing climate related vulnerability. CLUVA Deliverable D2.11: CLUVA project (Assessing vulnerability of urban systems, populations and goods in relation to natural and man-made disasters in Africa), Grant agreement no. 265137. Available at http://www.cluva.eu/deliverables/CLUVA_D2.11.pdf
Kabisch S, Kunath A, Schweizer-Ries P, Steinführer A (Eds.) (2012) Vulnerability, Risks and complexity. Impacts of Global change on Human Habitats. Hogrefe, Göttingen
Kuhlicke C, Kabisch S, Krellenberg K, Steinführer A (2012) Urban vulnerability under conditions of global environmental change: conceptual reflections and empirical examples from growing and shrinking cities. In: S. Kabisch, A. Kunath, P. Schweizer-Ries & A. Steinführer (Eds.), Vulnerability, risks and complexity: impacts of global change on human habitats. Göttingen: Hogrefe (Advances in people and environment studies, 3). 27–38
Kebede SA, Nicholls JR (2010) Population and assets exposure to coastal flooding in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania): vulnerability to climate extremes; Report submitted to Global Climate Adaptation Partnership (GCAP), 17 January 2011
Kombe W (2005) Land use dynamics in peri-urban areas and their implications on the urbangrowth and form: the case of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Habitat International 29(1):113–135
Moser C (1998) The asset vulnerability framework. Reassessing urban poverty reduction strategies. World Devel 26(1):1–9
O’Brien K, Eriksen S, Nygaard LP, Schjolde A (2007) Why different interpretations of vulnerability matter in climate change discourses. Climate Policy 7(1):73–88
Parry M, Canziani O, Palutikof J, van der Linden P, Hanson C (Eds) (2007) Climate change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of working group ii to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPPC). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Pelling M (2006) Measuring urban vulnerability to natural disaster risk: benchmarks for sustainability. Open House International 31:125–132
Rygel L, O’sullivan D, Yarnal B (2006) A method for constructing a social vulnerability index: An application to hurricane storm surges in a developed country. mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change, 11(3), 741–764. doi:10.1007/s11027-006-0265-6
Tonye E, Yango J, Tsalefac M, Ngosso A, Nguimbis J, Ngohe Ekam S, Moudiki C, Mgaba P, Tamo T, Pancha moluhP, Lindley S, Weets G (2012) Report on climate related hazards in the selected cities. CLUVA Deliverable D5.2: CLUVA project (Assessing vulnerability of urban systems, populations and goods in relation to natural and man-made disasters in Africa), Grant agreement no. 265137. Available at: http://www.cluva.eu/deliverables/CLUVA_D5.2.pdf
UN-HABITAT (2007) Profil Urbain de Ouagadougou. UNEP: Nairobi
UN-HABITAT (2010) The State of African Cities 2010, Governance, Inequality and Urban Land Markets. UNEP: Nairobi
Vincent K (2004) Creating an index of social vulnerability to climate change in Africa. Working Paper No.56. Tyndall Centre for Climate Research, University of East Anglia, Norwich
Vordzorgbe S UN/ISRD (2007) Climate change and risk management in Africa: Major issues. Expert background paper for the session on risk management and climate change. World economic forum on Africa. Cape Town, 13-15 June 2007.
Wisner B, Blaikie P, Cannon T, Davis I (2004) At risk: natural hazards, people’s vulnerability and disasters. 2nd edition. Routledge, London
Wu SY, Yarnal B, Fischer A (2002) ‘Vulnerability of coastal communities to sea-level rise: A case study of the Cape May county, New Jersey, USA’ Climate Research 22, 255–270
Xaba J, Horn P, Motola S (2002) Employment sector 2002/10, working paper on the informal economy: The informal sector in sub-saharan africa. international labor organization 2002. Geneva International Labor Office Available at: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/ed_emp/documents/publication/wcms_122204.pdf
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this paper
Cite this paper
Jean-Baptiste, N., Kabisch, S., Kuhlicke, C. (2013). Urban Vulnerability Assessment in Flood-Prone Areas in West and East Africa. In: Rauch, S., Morrison, G., Norra, S., Schleicher, N. (eds) Urban Environment. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7756-9_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7756-9_17
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-7755-2
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-7756-9
eBook Packages: EnergyEnergy (R0)