FLOOD RISK ASSESSMENT, CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATIONS AND MITIGATION STRATEGIES OF COMMUNITIES IN EDO STATE, NIGERIA

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Despite flooding being one of the most common and destructive natural hazards, the risk it poses is systematically underestimated and still increasing due to climate change and growing concentrations of people and assets in flood-prone areas. The study carried out a flood risk assessment, climate adaptation and mitigation strategies of communities in Edo State, Nigeria. With the aid of questionnaires and GIS techniques, the flood risk level of communities within Edo states were analysed by capturing all the components of flood risk which include exposure and vulnerability. All analysis was carried out using descriptive statistics and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to determine the extent of the communities’ flood. The extent of risk showed that 778 communities were captured in risk analysis, 503 (64.65%) of the communities were found within low flood risk level while 150 (19.28%) communities and 125 (16.07%) communities were found to be within medium and high flood risk level respectively. The climate variables showed some level of fluctuation while the adopted adaptation measures such as expansion of floodplain and wetlands was based on political will of administrators, and the measure was perceived less effective. There was high level of awareness about government mitigation measures in the area and the main mitigation measure by government is construction of drainage system which was perceived to be effective. It was therefore concluded that all the adopted attributes contributed to the establishment of flood risk of Edo State and was categories into high, medium and low flood risk level. Hence, there is need to intensify the planning and execution of disaster management programs with the support of the produced flood risk map.