Elum Zelda A, Lawal Olanrewaju
Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Department of Geography and Environmental Management, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Jamba. 2022 Sep 29;14(1):1303. doi: 10.4102/jamba.v14i1.1303. eCollection 2022.
Rapid urbanisation is contributing to increasing societal vulnerability to disaster. This study aimed at exploring the perception on flood risk and ascertaining the determinants of disaster preparedness among residents in flood-prone urban communities. Descriptive statistics and discriminant regression model were employed on primary data collected from 240 urban households across five communities at risk of flooding in the study area. The results showed that most households had low awareness of flood risk and exhibit low levels of adaptive capacity, having adopted little or no measures to deal with disaster floods. Also, awareness of flood risk was observed to discriminate the most between the two groups of adopters and nonadopters of flood preventive and management measures (proxy for disaster preparedness), followed by flood risk perception, age, location and household size.
The study suggests an integrated approach (a combination of preventive, protective and control measures) by all stakeholders, including government and other relevant bodies, increasing public awareness of flood risk and its attending effects for greater responsiveness, supporting communities in regular clearing of drainage areas and strictly regulating the construction of buildings, particularly in flood prone areas.
快速城市化正导致社会对灾害的脆弱性增加。本研究旨在探索对洪水风险的认知，并确定易发生洪水的城市社区居民的灾害准备决定因素。对从研究区域内五个有洪水风险社区的240户城市家庭收集的原始数据采用描述性统计和判别回归模型。结果表明，大多数家庭对洪水风险的认识较低，适应能力也较低，几乎没有采取或没有采取任何措施应对灾害性洪水。此外，观察到洪水风险意识在采取和未采取洪水预防和管理措施（灾害准备的代理指标）的两组人群之间差异最大，其次是洪水风险认知、年龄、位置和家庭规模。
该研究建议所有利益相关者，包括政府和其他相关机构，采用综合方法（预防、保护和控制措施相结合），提高公众对洪水风险及其影响的认识以提高应对能力，支持社区定期清理排水区域，并严格规范建筑物建设，特别是在易发生洪水的地区。
