The historical perspective of flood occurrences in the Shire River basin, Malawi

Abstract Apart from droughts and pollution, floods are one of the most serious climate-related dangers that afflict millions of people each year, resulting in thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in losses. Malawi’s River Shire basin is highly susceptible to flood disasters and subjected to great damage every year. The Shire River has caused suffering to people with its devastating floods throughout human history. Large floods have been occurring often especially in the Chikwawa district for the past half-century, with different degrees of scale and ferocity. The historical viewpoint of flood catastrophe risk events in the district, on the other hand, has received little attention. Therefore, the historical occurrence of floods in the Shire River basin of the Chikwawa district from 1980 to 2019 in order to establish the flood frequency, is discussed in this study. Content analysis of qualitative and quantitative data acquired via survey questionnaires (n = 270) and key informant interviews (n = 18) are both part of the techniques used. The results show that for the five-year periods (2015–2019), floods become more common in the district, with a distinct increase in respect of human losses, despite a decrease in precipitation amounts. As a result, the article's unique contribution is the identification of flood occurrence trends in the Chikwawa district to provide a scientific reference for flood management. Understanding the historical occurrence of Shire River floods is crucial for sustainable disaster risk mitigation measures.