Abstract
Since the 1960s, most cities in developing countries have faced a high rate of urbanization, which in turn has caused more harm to low-income earners, in urban areas. A majority of low-income earners most often face difficulties in accessing land in planned areas, as a result they are forced to build houses in unplanned settlements that are vulnerable to natural hazards. The situation is worse to the extent that people encroach the most vulnerable areas (hazard lands). As concentration of people increases, these unplanned areas become more unsafe to live in. This is partly due to the risks associated with natural hazards particularly flooding. Further, vulnerability of unplanned settlements in developing countries is aggravated by hosts of problems caused by many factors, including inadequate Government involvement in: environmental protection especially managing hazard lands and helping the community to minimize risks associated with hazards. This paper addresses this issue. It argues that community and Government initiatives are vital to any strategy for flood risk reduction and environmental protection in general. The study employed both the primary and the secondary data sources. Data collection tools and techniques involved in this study included: Checklist to various leaders, interview using questionnaires, focus group discussion, analysis of aerial photographs and non participant observation. A total of 70 households from within Keko Machungwa were interviewed. The study revealed that flooding is largely contributed by construction done by a large scale developer on a water course; and when affected community initiated a strategy to solve the problem they partially succeed due to inadequate support from the Government and other stakeholders. These findings could be useful to strengthen policy and legislation in environmental protection, management and flood control as well as in intervening land use conflicts between local community and developers.
Highlights
It has been noted that each day about 193,107 new urban dwellers are added to the world’s urban population [1]
Forms of urbanization, which in most cases are not in favor of the low income earners, led the majorities of the poor people to be pushed into locations that are not protected environmentally (Figure 1) and they are prone to natural hazards in general and flood in particular [4]
Galea and Vlahov (2005) and Kochtitzky et al (2006) note that, urban planning and environmental protection are supposed to ensure that the community’s requirements such as housing, healthcare infrastructure, water supply, natural resource utilization, accessibility and good living condition are available in sufficient levels to meet the rapidly changing urban population [5] [6]
Summary
It has been noted that each day about 193,107 new urban dwellers are added to the world’s urban population [1]. The situation is different; many countries around the world mainly from the developing world lack proper urban planning, environmental protection policies and implementation mechanism. The existing proper urban plans and environmental protection policies are not implemented satisfactorily [1] [7]-[9]. This argument is supported by the Secretary- General United Nations, His Excellency Ban Ki-moon who said; Evidence from around the world suggests that contemporary urban planning has largely failed. Urban sprawl and unplanned per urban development are among the most visible consequences, along with the increasing vulnerability of hundreds of million [1]
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