When does risk become residual? A systematic review of research on flood risk management in West Africa

Wagner, Simon, Souvignet, Maxime, Walz, Yvonne, Balogun, Kehinde, Komi, Kossi, Kreft, Soenke and Rhyner, Jakob, (2021). When does risk become residual? A systematic review of research on flood risk management in West Africa. Regional Environmental Change, 21(3), 1-18

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  • Sub-type Journal article
    Author Wagner, Simon
    Souvignet, Maxime
    Walz, Yvonne
    Balogun, Kehinde
    Komi, Kossi
    Kreft, Soenke
    Rhyner, Jakob
    Title When does risk become residual? A systematic review of research on flood risk management in West Africa
    Appearing in Regional Environmental Change
    Volume 21
    Issue No. 3
    Publication Date 2021-08-25
    Place of Publication Cham
    Publisher Springer Nature Switzerland AG
    Start page 1
    End page 18
    Language eng
    Abstract Flood events in West Africa have devastating impacts on the lives of people. Additionally, developments such as climate change, settlement expansion into flood-prone areas, and modification of rivers are expected to increase flood risk in the future. Policy documents have issued calls for conducting local risk assessments and understanding disaster risk in diverse aspects, leading to an increase in such research. Similarly, in a shift from flood protection to flood risk management, the consideration of various dimensions of flood risk, the necessity of addressing flood risk through an integrated strategy containing structural and non-structural measures, and the presence of residual risk are critical perspectives raised. However, the notion of “residual risk” remains yet to be taken up in flood risk management-related academic literature. This systematic review seeks to approach the notion of residual risk by reviewing information on flood impacts, common measures, and recommen-dations in academic literature. The review reveals various dimensions of impacts from residual flood risk aside from material damage, in particular, health impacts and economic losses. Infrastructural measures were a dominant category of measures before and after flood events and in recommendations, despite their shortcomings. Also, spatial planning interventions, a more participatory and inclusive governance approach, including local knowledge, sensitisation, and early warning systems, were deemed critical. In the absence of widespread access to insurance schemes, support from social networks after flood events emerged as the most frequent measure. This finding calls for in-depth assessments of those networks and research on potential complementary formal risk transfer mechanisms.
    UNBIS Thesaurus RISK MANAGEMENT
    WEST AFRICA
    Keyword Flood
    Residual risk
    Systematic review
    Copyright Holder The Authors
    Copyright Year 2021
    Copyright type Creative commons
    DOI 10.1007/s10113-021-01826-7
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    Created: Thu, 28 Oct 2021, 21:33:13 JST by Aarti Basnyat on behalf of UNU EHS