Zeitschrift für Geowissenschaften und Klimawandel

Abstrakt

Socio-Economic Impacts of Flood Disaster and Management Practices in Jigjiga Town, Ethiopia

Abdihakim Aar Abdilahi

Flooding is the most generally experienced natural hazard. Flooding is a natural phenomenon that will remain a major hazard as long as people live and work in flood prone areas. The United Nations International body for Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction defines disaster, as “a serious interruption of the functioning of a community or a society causing widespread human, material, economic, or environmental losses which exceed the ability of the affected community or society to manage using its own resources”. Across the world, literatures that give emphasizes on the adaptation, vulnerability, and resilience as a core concept in the broader issue of sustainable livelihoods are growing. From the point of view of the subject under study, the populations in Jigjiga who lives in the selected kebeles that are highly affected by the floods were the target of the study, in this research data conducted in both quantities and qualitative tools. In quantities, the researcher used questionnaire in order to get enough representative respondents for the research topic. For qualitative tools, the researcher employed in-depth interview to gather detailed information of the research topic and to fill the defect and gap from collected quantities data. The researcher also employed observation techniques to observe situation on ground. This study concluded that flooding is an expected disaster in Jigjiga, since 2008, and the majority of the respondents together with the interviewed experts indicated their experience of witnessing flood event in the town, which is an indication of how flooding has been occurring the town. This study also revealed that flooding in the town is caused by the negligence of both the authority that administers the town and even the regional authorities. Multi sector flood mitigation measures should be created.