Appraisal of Knowledge, Perceptions and Adaptation to Flood Risks in the Downstream Section of River Niger Flood Plain in Mokwa Local Government Area of Niger State

Flood is a well-known phenomenon in the flood plain of River Niger that has continues to pose serious multiple threats to the inhabitants. Despite the risk involved, the communities continue to occupy the area using their creative set of profound local knowledge, perceptions and adaptive initiatives, because of its economic benefits. However, existing approaches to flood risk reduction and management by stakeholders at local levels over the years have not produced the desired results. This is partly because of the conventional conceptualization by the stakeholders that has overlooked and ignored local knowledge, perceptions and adaptive initiatives in the management of flood plain areas. This neglect is partly due to the lack of real evidence base to understand the importance of local knowledge, perceptions and adaptive initiatives of flood plain communities. Hence, the search to identify this evidence base to understand the importance of this initiatives of flood plain communities has prompted the need for this study. The study however, identify and appraises the community's knowledge, perceptions and adaptation initiatives with a view to understanding it importance to flood risk management for safer floodplain habitation. In order to achieve this, the research adopted mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative) for data collection. There are 46 settlements with 26,851persons in area. Nine (9) settlements were selected using purposive sampling and 392 respondents with 15 interviews and 9 FGDs participants were used. The respondents include the household heads while interviews and FGDs involves village heads, members of Community associations, elderly community members, religious leaders, lead farmers and youth representatives. The participants were selected systematically in consultation with Village Heads. The findings indicated that communities have a good deal of knowledge and experience regarding local risk and hazards in the floodplain area and have developed forecasting techniques to predict flood occurrence and adaptive initiatives to manage the conditions at the household and community levels. Significant variations in residents' perceptions of risk and what makes them vulnerable in the floodplain have developed between geographical locations in the rural setting (i.e. farmers and fisher men), and among different socio-economic groups (i.e. age, income and employment characteristics). Recommendations highlighted the need for integration of the diversity of the identified local knowledge and adaptive initiatives with the scientific or conventional knowledge. The Government and Community Based organizations (CBOs) dealing with flood disasters in the flood plain area should focus on preparedness by enhancing local adaptive capacities on protection measures in anticipation of future flood events. Flood warning activities tailored to local social contexts will be instrumental in reducing risk and strengthening capacity of the affected communities to respond more effectively to flood emergencies.