Household vulnerability, resilience and adaptation to floods: the case of nsanje district, malawi

Abstract

This study assessed the household vulnerability, resilience and adaptation to flood disasters in the flood predisposed areas of Ngabu and Tengani in Nsanje district, Malawi. Nsanje district is one of the areas that has for so long in history being affected by flood disasters in the country. A quantitative approach was adopted using primary data collected through household survey self administered structured questionaire. Using the methodology developed by IPCC in 2009, the IPCC Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) was calculated for each block using the sub components of LVI including adaptive capacity, exposure and susceptibility. The study results indicate that T/A Ngabu is more vulnerable with an LVI(IPCC) value of 0.027 as compared to - 0.044 for T/A Tengani. In determining the factors that infuence Livelihood Vulnerability, the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) model was used to run a regression where LVI components for each household was computed and used as the dependent variable while actual factors that are hypothesised to influence these components were used as explanatory/ independent variables and Stata/SE 14.0 was used to analyse the data. The regression model estimation output reveals that flood experience, unavailability of warning alert, household proximity to the flooding river, injuries and death, beliefs and attitude of the people, and non-availability of safe homes are the determinants influencing exposure to floods in the studied area. The adaptive capacity component is being influenced by the age of the household head, sex of the household head, education level, disability, access to credit facilities, government assistance, income diversification and income level as well as social networking through membership in social clubs and community relationship. Furthermore, on the determinants of LVI, the sensitivity component is found to be influenced by access to health facilities and ability to save seed. Lastly, saving food & seed, irrigation, Village Savings Loans (VSL), borrowing from family/friends, borrowing from loan sharks and seeking assistance from government are identified as the resilience strategies while construction of small local dikes, construction of local drainage system, elevating the house wall, planting trees in catchment areas and temporally relocation were found to be adaptation mechanisms for some families within the studied population with more than half of the households reporting no adaptation mechanism adopted.