AA / Douala – Cameroun
Several African countries experience every year, and especially since June this year, heavy rainfall followed by deadly and devastating floods, caused by climate change, among other urban realities, a group of experts told the Anadolu Agency.
Senegalese authorities reported the death of at least one person in Friday’s flooding. Last July, in Côte d’Ivoire, at least 19 people were killed and several others were injured as a result of the same phenomenon, which also caused around twenty deaths more recently in Uganda.
“In 2020 in Niger, we had 88 deaths due to floods, while 77 people died in 2021, and this year we already have 24 deaths for the same reasons,” said Katiellou Gaptia Lawan, director of the office. national meteorology office of Niger, the Anadolu Agency.
This situation causes losses estimated at several million dollars annually in Niger, he noted, indicating the damage to infrastructure and the destruction of farms and homes.
Other African countries are also facing similar challenges, which experts say are linked to climate change that is increasing the intensity of rainfall.
“Extreme rainfall is on the increase, now affecting towns that were not previously affected by flooding,” said Katiellou, who referred to the case of the Niger River, where river flow records were observed in 2019 and 2020.
Katiellou said this reflected the effects of global warming.
“It is undeniable that these heavy rains followed by floods are linked to climate change,” said Armel Yobo, a Cameroonian environmentalist.
In Cameroon, floods also destroy transport infrastructure and homes every year.
– Overcrowding is a factor
Yobo believes that beyond climatic hazards, overcrowding, lack of urban development, lack of adequate infrastructure and poor waste management are also factors that cause flooding.
According to him, several African cities limit themselves to creating an agglomeration without any real planning.
“Floods in Africa are due to climatic variations inherent in the disturbance of atmospheric conditions. But they are above all the result of a rural exodus which leads to the development of cities with habitat systems not adapted to natural drainage systems”, said Abdoulaye Faty, a teaching hydrologist at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal.
There is also a combination of negative factors that stem from natural soil conditions, infrastructure deficits, rampant urbanization and insufficient urban planning, observed Beaugrain Doumongue, a Togolese civil engineer and head of Building for Tomorrow. , an organization advocating for sustainable cities in Africa.
“For example, drainage systems are undersized and poorly used by people, who clog them by throwing waste,” he noted.
This urbanization is motivated by the poverty of the populations who, in their search for means of survival, abusively exploit the forests by cutting down trees to sell wood, explains Katiellou.
“They are destroying ecosystems by denuding watersheds, the destroyed vegetation then causes washout which carries water and sand which will raise river levels. In doing so, people are also increasingly creating an environment prone to floods,” he said.
For Beaugrain Doumongue, people are not aware of the usefulness of green spaces.
“The capacity of these green spaces to retain water is not sufficiently taken into account, while they might allow better infiltration of water and limit the runoff that occurs when soils are artificialized and floods abound,” he said.
– An exit route
Faced with these different threats, experts have called for the urgent creation of sustainable cities.
According to Doumongue, this requires real political will, a general awareness of the risks, in the era of climate change, and a redevelopment of cities through the establishment of warning systems on meteorological risks, within the framework of sustainable urban planning.
“This promotes better mapping of sensitive areas, active information and assessment processes, and thus contributes to building resilience. At a minimum, it is necessary to opt for multifunctional approaches to stormwater management, combining all forms of vegetated developments which are generally more economical,” he said.
Calling for public awareness, Katiellou also recommended rethinking urban planning.
“Infrastructure must be contextualized, to take into account climate change and the pressures exerted by extreme events. Laws must be passed to prohibit the construction of dwellings in flood-prone areas. Vigilance and warning systems must be put in place to alert people and prevent hazards from turning into disasters,” said Katiellou.
The same goes for Armel Yobo, who calls for the adoption of the sustainable city model, with all that this implies in terms of controlling population growth.
Experts have warned of the risk of greater climate damage if these various measures are not implemented.
“African populations should therefore be aware that recent disasters in Abidjan, Dakar, Niamey and elsewhere are likely to become more frequent and common to most sub-Saharan countries,” Doumongue said.
*Translated from English by Mounir Bennour
