Study into Accra flooding launched
The Regional Institute for Population Studies (RIPS) of the University of Ghana has launched a study that seeks to provide solutions to the perennial flooding in Accra and its attendant risks.
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The study, which will take three years to conclude, will take off this year and is expected to produce scientific evidence to strengthen the capacity of data collection by the city planners, as well as develop an integrated management system that is climate-smart as a means of curbing flood disasters in the city.
Objectives
Dubbed, ‘Cities and Climate Change Project’, the study is also expected to recommend measures that are technically feasible, economically efficient, socially acceptable and environmentally viable as adaptable solutions that could be considered for medium-term development planning.
Launching the project at an inception workshop at the University of Ghana in Accra, an Associate Professor of RIPS, Prof. Stephen Kwankye, said the project had a sense of urgency to address key issues contributing to flooding in Accra and its environs.
Prof Kwankye, who chaired the event, called for collaboration between the participants and the relevant institutions to ensure that findings from the research were fed into policy decisions.
When completed, the research, which is sponsored by the Canadian International Research Development Centre (IDRC), will assess and test the capacity of city planners on the use of spatial technologies, satellite imagery, digitised maps and economic tools.
It will also examine the management of human dimensions of climate change and flood risks, as well as the production of flood risk maps and other tools that go to improve planning and flood management.
The project is a response to the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which warns of increased frequency of floods in coastal cities, with attendant impact on infrastructure.
Sustainability
To ensure that the project is sustained beyond its three-year mandate, the Senior Programme Specialist in charge of Agriculture and Environment at the IDRC, Mrs Edith Ofwona Adera, said recognising the need for better flood management was the first crucial step to dealing with perennial floods.
“People have seen enough suffering and we have reached a point where we need to come up with a lasting solution,” she said.
She called for collaboration to ensure that the project was sustained even after the project deadline, as experiences from the past indicated that after such projects ended, there were no measures to continue and sustain them.
Accra’s problem
According to experts, Accra, which is sited on a low-lying area, experiences flooding annually, mainly because of the haphazard construction of houses, especially on watercourses, poor drainage systems and poor waste management challenges that lead to residents turning drains into refuse dumps.
In 2011, floods in the country resulted in the death of 15 people in Accra, in addition to the destruction of properties running into millions of cedis.
Similar incidents of flooding were recorded in 1968, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2010, 2013 and 2014.
The country’s worse flood disaster was recorded last year when heavy rains, coupled with an explosion at a fuel station in Accra, resulted in the death of more than 150 people and injuries to scores of others.