Flood Risk Preparedness Among Community Dwellers in Plateau State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated flood risk preparedness among community-dwelling adults in Plateau State, Nigeria. Three specific objectives with three corresponding research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted the mixed-methods research design. The population for the study comprised 3,206,531 community-dwellers in Plateau State. The sample size for the study consisted of 810 community-dwelling adults and 23 staff of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) in Plateau State. The Flood Risk Preparedness Questionnaire (FRPQ) and In-depth Interview Guide on Flood Risk Preparedness (IDGFRP) were used for data collection. Face validity of the two instruments (FRPQ and IDGFRP) were established by seven experts. Four experts were selected from Human Kinetics and Health Education, one expert from Science Education (Measurement and Evaluation Unit) and two from the Department of Geo-informatics and Survey, all of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State. The reliability of coefficients (internal consistency) of Sections B and C of the FRPQ were determined using the Cronbach’s alpha. The reliability of coefficients of .96 and .83 were obtained for sections B and C, respectively. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions. Also, the null hypotheses were tested using independent samples t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) at 0.05 level of significance and appropriate degrees of freedom. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 25 (SPSS vs. 25) and Atlas.ti version 22 were used for the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data, respectively. The quantitative and qualitative findings were interpreted and integrated. The quantitative findings showed that community-dwelling adults were prepared for flood risks to a moderate extent (= 2.61, SD = 0.70).  Additionally, there were significant differences in the level of flood risk preparedness among community-dwelling adults in Plateau State based on education level, F(3,786) = 7.838, P = 0.000 and income level F(3,786) = 3.987, P = 0.008. The qualitative findings also indicated that the level of flood risk preparedness among them was suboptimal. Based on the study's findings, it was recommended, among others, that flood risk preparedness education campaigns should be intensified at the community levels to improve community-dwelling adults' flood risk preparedness levels in Plateau State.