Residents' perceived flood effects in an urban setting: Empirical evidence in selected flood-prone areas, North Central Nigeria

The impact of flooding in the last few decades is becoming increasingly adverse causing more material and human losses and posing undesirable effects on lives and livelihoods. An attempt is made in this study to evaluate effects of flooding as perceived by urban residents using a survey approach. A sample of 258 respondents was interviewed across eight purposively selected residential areas in the urban centres of North Central Nigeria. Key Informant Interviews (KII) were equally conducted with two residents comprising a farmer and a trader from each sampled residential area. Cronbach's alpha reliability of the 19 variables of flood effects showed a relative consistency ( > or equal to 0.75) of all measured items. Findings showed that flood effects as rated by residents were generally high. It was revealed in Principal Component Analysis (PCA) that three components had eigen values greater than one explaining 65.988% of the total variance, thus summarizing the effects of floods in the selected neighbourhoods into environmental and health, infrastructural and socio-economic. It was therefore recommended that development control policies that enforce regular clearing of drains and adhering to setback rules, prohibit housing development along water courses and dumping of refuse into drains be given utmost priorities in the study area.