Flooding Vulnerability in Informal Settlements

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This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/socsci12010040

Flooding is an increasingly challenging problem facing cities today, with consequences mostly felt in marginalized communities. Residents of informal settlements are particularly susceptible to the effects of flooding given that they are compelled to live in the most unsafe locations, such as floodplains. There is need to mitigate the challenges and strengthen the resiliency of informal settlements in relation to flooding through upgrading housing and infrastructures, green infrastructures, policies, integrating indigenous knowledge, and community participation

flooding vulnerable informal settlement policies climate change

1. Historical Overview of South Africa’s Informal Settlement and Marginalization

The legacy of spatial inequality and exclusion that underlies South Africa’s current urban regions and fragmented development patterns is the result of numerous political, economic, legal, and social forces. The migration and urbanization patterns in South Africa during the past few decades have been influenced by a specific history. Towns and cities evolved as economic and agricultural centers along crucial trade routes in Southern Africa before colonial authority (Van Wyk 2012). Some key occurrences beginning in the middle of the eighteenth century substantially disturbed the settlement patterns and means of subsistence of populations in southern Africa. The most notable factors leading to widespread forced migration were extended periods of ethnic conflict, severe droughts, and hunger (Seekings 2009). To increase political, economic, social, and geographical control, various Black communities were physically separated from one another and managed separately during the colonial era. Equally obvious is the role that the law plays in encouraging spatially inequitable settlement patterns, urban residential segregation, the prioritization of White minority property and economic interests, and the legalization of the forcible eviction of Black urban residents to remote locations outside the urban boundary (Pienaar 2002). People were subjected to oppressive policies, such as the well-known legislation that hampered the urbanization process (Turok and Borel-Saladin 2014).

The 1940s saw an increase in urbanization, which led to the spread of informal settlement and it implied that people had little access to properties and were compelled to live in homelands that were entirely of one ethnic group. As a result, the rural economy changed from being agrarian to being cash-based to accommodate numerous labor migrants (Zuma 2018).

The apartheid regime looked at alternative approaches in the 1980s to deal with the effects of rapid urbanization and the influx of Black people into towns and cities, and thus proposals were included in the White Paper on an Urbanization Strategy for the Republic of South Africa (DOH 1997). With the introduction of this new approach to policy, steps were taken to guarantee that urbanization took place in areas of towns and cities designated for Black settlement, typically along the urban perimeter, in a planned and regulated way. Additionally, the plan permitted controlled squatting on the defined territory through the upgrade of invaded property or the planned redevelopment of vacant areas, particularly with the help of private industry engagement (Leduka 2008).

However, in actuality, the plan led to uncertainties concerning how to address informal settlement developments. Despite the end of White minority control in 1994, an apartheid policy that compelled poor Black individuals to live on the periphery of cities has not been remedied, and this has had a disproportionately negative impact on those vulnerable social groups (Sguazzin and Siwele 2022).

2. Strengthening the Resiliency of Informal Settlements

To strengthen the informal communities’ resilience to flooding disasters, this section addresses important concerns around the highlighted theme. As a result of urban marginalization, which throughout time has continued to reflect a top-down autocratic approach, residents of informal settlements have learned to be resilient not only during natural disasters, but also to urban politics in general. Without a doubt, the government has strengthened its ties with the unorganized sector, but in practice, inadequate strategy and execution have left the urban poor dissatisfied with the lack of progress in acquiring housing (SERI 2018) The pathways laid out in the next section can be utilized by the government and other players to help the marginalized informal settlements become more resilient to flooding disasters.

3. Housing and Infrastructure Upgrading

As a holistic conceptual approach that connects individuals to mitigate climate-related calamities, resiliency is steadily gaining traction (Melore and Nel 2020). The usual government response to the requirement to strengthen resilience in informal settlements is to demand that residents invest in bringing their existing structures up to code and to pay for the expense of connecting such buildings to infrastructure and services (Satterthwaite et al. 2020). Governments can, however, increase the availability and lower the price of the essential elements, such as land and permits, building supplies (Rojas et al. 2022), connection to infrastructure (water, sanitation, drainage, and electricity), and services, while also enhancing access to formal housing. By collaborating with local governments to put “upgrading” programs into place, the informal settlements can successfully increase their resilience to the effects of climate change. Programs for upgrading buildings can raise their quality and safety while also providing infrastructure and public services (including healthcare, emergency services, and public transport). Governments can encourage companies to build less expensive “formal” housing and persuade banks to offer low-interest credit programs. One of the housing-related problems that is anticipated is the challenge of locating land to relocate individuals who reside in areas prone to natural disasters. State land must be made accessible for human settlement to be used for the construction of affordable housing and dwellings for rural development to solve the menace.

4. Mapping/Modeling Levels of Flood Vulnerability

In South Africa, modeling flood vulnerability at the local level is crucial to aid in understanding the localized interactions of factors that affect flood risk. The government and other actors can use this as a foundation to create suitable policies, initiatives, and services to mitigate flood vulnerability (Tom et al. 2022). This study found that little has been done to map the levels of informal flood vulnerability, which is alarming since various degrees of flood susceptibility exist within each community. Humans are more or less vulnerable to flooding depending on their coping and adapting skills, according to Nethengwe (2007). This makes it challenging to put into practice strategic initiatives meant to decrease flood vulnerability in a particular locality. Therefore, information on the actual occurrences of flood events, including their patterns, severity, and effects, is not available to further conduct a sensitivity analysis on the maps that are currently available.

In order to investigate the relationships between land uses, housing and population densities, household size and locational characteristics, flood dangers, and susceptibility in impacted informal communities, an appropriate GIS-based flood prediction model may be constructed. This dataset might kickstart a more intelligent approach to managing flood risk than there is at the moment. A thorough flood risk and vulnerability map is required which accurately identifies various degrees of flood risks and vulnerabilities and can aid in predicting intensities and impacts as well as proactive evacuation planning.

5. Indigenous Knowledge and Mapping

Residents of informal settlements have developed their methods for coping with floods as a result of the infrastructure issues faced by the majority of them. This study found a gap in the approaches to mapping flood vulnerability. Flood technique has adhered to the traditional method of creating a flood hazard vulnerability map, which is based mostly on physical characteristics, flood vulnerability models, remote sensing data, and geographic information system (GIS) tools (Musungu et al. 2012; Ngie 2012). It is contended that GIS alone is unable to account for the human aspects that contribute to flood susceptibility. Opportunities must be made for local opinions to be heard, as well as meaningfully incorporated into whatever is being planned, including projects, policies, and processes. While technical-based ways to deal with flood risk are important, this study contends that incorporating knowledge local residents have accumulated through generations can offer a situation-specific and improved strategy to address the complex nature of flood vulnerability (Tran et al. 2009; Membele et al. 2022). The government must acknowledge, for instance, how native people combat floods using traditional means. Likewise, since the populace is familiar with them, the government should recognize the early warning systems developed locally. A more comprehensive and affordable understanding of the man-made-environment interaction of flooding vulnerability at the local level can be provided by merging indigenous knowledge with GIS, according to Mapedza et al. (2022). Thus, we believe that the combining of indigenous information and GIS can give contextual, pragmatic knowledge that is essential for comprehending and modeling informal settlements’ vulnerability to flooding threats.

6. Green Infrastructure

Governments have historically used grey or engineering techniques to reduce the risks to flood disasters. However, as the negative effects of floods worsen, so does interest in a more comprehensive strategy for managing urban flood risk. Options for green infrastructure (GI) have become a crucial part of this comprehensive strategy (Douglas 2018). The creation of interconnected networks of green areas, such as parks, greenways, retention ponds, etc., that protect natural ecosystems and provide a range of social, economic, and environmental benefits, such as protecting habitats and maintaining natural services, is known as “green infrastructure” (GI) (US Environmental Protection Agency/USEPA 2010). Since residents of informal settlements are disproportionately affected by disasters such as floods, green infrastructure initiatives to reduce disaster risk will benefit them extremely. This paper promotes the idea that GI solutions need to be seriously considered as a component of strategies for managing urban flood risk in general.

7. Community Participation

For informal settlements to become more resilient and less vulnerable to flooding, there must be greater community involvement in managing flood hazards (Williams et al. 2018). This promotes a sense of community involvement and empowerment, which may ultimately result in more affordable, locally based, and long-lasting solutions to cope with flood vulnerability and reduction of disaster risk generally (Botha and Van Niekerk 2013). There is evidence that the need for community involvement in disaster risk problems is growing (Pandey 2018; Abunyewah et al. 2020), but this conversation is less prevalent in South Africa. The majority of the community mostly contributes to data collecting by responding to surveys or interviews that are conducted with them. The remaining stages are managed by “technical experts”. Out of all the studies that have been reviewed, this is an aberration that demonstrates inadequate community involvement and inclusion in the mapping of flood susceptibility. Thus, it poses an extreme challenge to include local knowledge and experiences to support disaster policies in informal settlements

References

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