Spatial Assessment of the Relationship between Social Vulnerability and Resilience to Flooding in the Core Niger Delta, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the spatial assessment of the relationship between social vulnerability and resilience to flooding in the Core Niger delta, Nigeria. The study made use of 400 copies of questionnaire to elicit information on the data on demographic and socio-economic characteristics; data on levels of social vulnerability in terms of exposure, susceptibility and adaptive capacity of the households to flood. The study employed the multistage sampling technique involving purposive, simple random and systematic sampling techniques. Descriptive statistics were employed for the data analysis while inferential statistics especially canonical correlation analysis (CCA) was employed to test hypothesis. Findings showed that singles and married individuals were the most common responses with 79.7% completed both elementary and secondary education. Findings also revealed that the canonical loadings for social vulnerability factors on the first canonical function revealed that level of exposure (0.575) and adaptive capacity (0.823) had high correlations, whereas only community resources/governance (0.551). The study therefore concluded that the relationship between social vulnerability and resilience to flooding in the Core Niger Delta are determined mostly by flood exposure, adaptive capacity and community resources/governance and it is recommended among others that government should organize workshops and seminars with relevant stakeholders in coastal communities to constantly educate them on the dangers of building structures in flood prone areas while residents must be advised to create ways to increase their flood-adaptive capabilities at the communal level.