Coping with Floods in Pikine, Senegal: An Exploration of Household Impacts and Prevention Efforts
1
Department of Earth Science, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT 84058, USA
2
Department of Geography, Kent State University at Salem, Salem, OH 44460, USA
3
Global Change Ecology Program, University of Bayreuth, 95447 Bayreuth, Germany
4
Department of Geography, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Urban Sci. 2019, 3(2), 54; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci3020054
Received: 9 February 2019 / Revised: 9 May 2019 / Accepted: 15 May 2019 / Published: 18 May 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Disaster and Recovery)
African cities are at increasing risk for disasters, including floods. Pikine, Senegal—located on the outskirts of the Dakar metropolitan region—has experienced regular floods since 2005 due to a rising water table, dense settlement, and inadequate drainage. The goal of this research was to assess household experiences of floods through in-depth qualitative interviews in one area of Pikine. A total of 44 households were interviewed on the economic and health impacts of flooding and their perceptions of flood mitigation strategies. Our research confirmed that floods create substantial economic and health burdens for families and that infrastructure projects have helped, but not solved, the flooding issues. Our research also had some unexpected findings, particularly relating to concerns over drinking water, land tenure and housing prices, and perception of government intervention.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
flooding; flood impacts; vulnerability; coping; flood prevention; Dakar
▼
Show Figures
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Hungerford, H.; Smiley, S.L.; Blair, T.; Beutler, S.; Bowers, N.; Cadet, E. Coping with Floods in Pikine, Senegal: An Exploration of Household Impacts and Prevention Efforts. Urban Sci. 2019, 3, 54. https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci3020054
AMA Style
Hungerford H, Smiley SL, Blair T, Beutler S, Bowers N, Cadet E. Coping with Floods in Pikine, Senegal: An Exploration of Household Impacts and Prevention Efforts. Urban Science. 2019; 3(2):54. https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci3020054
Chicago/Turabian StyleHungerford, Hilary; Smiley, Sarah L.; Blair, Taylor; Beutler, Samantha; Bowers, Noel; Cadet, Eddy. 2019. "Coping with Floods in Pikine, Senegal: An Exploration of Household Impacts and Prevention Efforts" Urban Sci. 3, no. 2: 54. https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci3020054
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.