Abstract
The shift from flood protection to flood risk management, together with recent arguments on incorporating culture in managing risk, underscores the application of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in managing disasters from flood hazards. Yet, documentation and incorporation of TEK into practice remains a challenge. This article contributes to addressing this challenge by exploring the existence of TEK to flooding in the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda. Using semi-structured interviews, data were collected from residents of the Nyamwamba watershed where intense flash floods caused deadly impacts in May 2013. Collected data were analysed using content, thematic and interpretive analysis techniques. Results indicate that TEK is exhibited through various traditional ecological approaches (TEAs). Although endangered, TEAs (conducted through collective action for a communally accepted end) are framed in three main activities: (1) assessment and prediction of rainfall and flood by the traditional hydro-meteorologist (diviner) and the traditional rain forecaster (rainmaker); (2) the mountain cleansing ritual (which act as flood risk awareness platform); and (3) immunising riverine communities through planting certain indigenous plants, which improve hydrological systems through their high conservation value for native ecological diversity. As most TEAs are conducted through collective action, they represent a platform to understand local capacities and enhance adoption of measures, and/or a source of knowledge for new measures to address flood risk. Therefore, full-scale investigations of these TEAs, determining how relevant TEAs are fine-tuned, and (scientific) measures enculturated based on fine-tuned TEAs could result in effective flood risk management in various flood hotspots where TEAs influence action.
Highlights
With the increasing emphasis on building resilience to natural hazards (UNISDR 2015), together with the recent focus on the role of culture in disaster risk management (IFRC 2014), approaches linked with traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) will become more relevant
Consistent with the themes derived from the analysis, the TEK to flooding in the Rwenzori is arranged under four main categories of traditional ecological approaches (TEAs): firstly, the historic TEAs to flood events
This study focused on exhibiting the existence of TEK to reducing the impact and risk of flooding, and highlighting the TEAs linked to it that might be relevant for effective flood risk management (FRM) in the Rwenzori Mountain Region
Summary
With the increasing emphasis on building resilience to natural hazards (UNISDR 2015), together with the recent focus on the role of culture in disaster risk management (IFRC 2014), approaches linked with traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) will become more relevant. Through interactions with their hydrological systems, indigenous people accumulate intimate perceptions and experiences through observation, sharing, monitoring and evaluation of how flood hazards progress into disasters (Iloka 2016; McEwen & Jones 2012) In this process, they get acquainted with concrete knowledge and evolve practices or approaches of how and where to place certain enterprises or plant species that have proven capabilities to resist flood events while enhancing the livelihoods and benefits associated with flooding (Iloka 2016). Their views on what is likely to work become essential to consider in assessing and reducing the impacts and risk due to floods events, and, importantly to enhance flood risk management (FRM)
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