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Ecohealth and climate change : adaptation to flooding events in riverside secondary cities, West Africa
Editor(s)
Otto-Zimmermann, Konrad
Book title
Resilient cities: cities and adaptation to climate change: proceedings of the Global Forum 2010
Publisher
Springer
Place of publication
Dordrecht
Pages
55-67
ISSN/ISBN
978-94-007-0784-9
Abstract
In 2009, for the first time in history, more people were found to live in urban areas than in rural settings. Predictions for 2025 are that 70% of the world's population will be urban. Urban dwellers in particular, then, will need to adapt to climate change. Urbanization occurs at a rapid pace in secondary cities across Africa. Indeed, half the increase of urban populations in the coming years is expected to occur in secondary cities. Poor settlements near water bodies (rivers, irrigation systems and large dams) are prone to flooding, which is likely to be exacerbated by climate change. Employing an ecohealth approach, this study explores the vulnerabilities and resilience of poor urban settlers in four secondary cities of West Africa, all located in close proximity to water bodies: Korhogo, Cote d'Ivoire (212,000 inhabitants, near a dam); Kaedi, Mauritania (71,000 inhabitants, near a river); Ziguinchor, Senegal (269,000 inhabitants, near a river); and Kara, Togo (120,000 inhabitants, near a river). The aim of this study is to reinforce the resilience of the most vulnerable of these communities and their capacity to adapt to processes of drought and flooding in two climatic contexts: semi-arid and tropical humid. Local governance authorities play a central role in this project, which emphasizes participatory research, and explores linkages between hazards, vulnerabilities and local adaptive capacity potentials, particularly in the water and health sectors.
