- Title
- Beyond coping in informal settlements: the factors influencing flood risk adaptation intentions
- Creator
- Tasantab, Jerry Chati
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2021
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Flooding is a nightmare in many parts of the world, with the poor and vulnerable usually the worst affected. Extensive flood risks are a significant concern in many countries, including Ghana, where localised annual flooding is common in urban areas. There is concern that climate change will increase the intensity of precipitation, with resultant flooding affecting vulnerable populations, especially those in informal settlements in developing countries. Households in the informal settlements have habitually adopted coping measures to deal with the existing flood risks. Coping measures are reactive, short-term measures, and are unable to ensure resilience. Although coping measures are a critical part of building flood resilience, adaptation measures ensure proactive and long-term adjustments to existing and future flooding risk that increases resilience. Nevertheless, adaptation measures that can build the resilience of households are not adopted currently in Ghana, and this is placing lives at risk. Only a few empirical studies have focused on the flood risk adaptation intentions of informal settlements in the Ghanaian context. This research, therefore, investigates the informal settlements’ flood risk adaptation intentions, with a view to understanding how flood experience, fear, coping experience and cognitive appraisals affect those intentions. The conceptual position of this research is underpinned by the protection motivation theory (PMT). The application of PMT to the study of the flood risk adaptation intentions of households in informal settlements is novel. Therefore, a new conceptual model was developed, based on PMT, to examine how flood experience, fear, coping experience and cognitive appraisals influence flood risk adaptation intention. The study employed a convergent mixed methods design, comprising a concurrent quantitative and qualitative data collection approach. The research focused on Glefe, an informal settlement in Accra, Ghana, as a case study. The quantitative data was collected using a household survey, resulting in 392 responses. The qualitative data was collected from interviews with nineteen key informants, comprising seventeen community members and two National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) officials. The quantitative data was then analysed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) analysis with the support of Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and WarpPLS, while the qualitative data was analysed with thematic analysis with the aid of NVivo. The quantitative results showed that there exist statistically significant relationships between the aforementioned independent variables and flood risk adaptation intentions. With few exceptions, the hypothesised relationships in the conceptual model were generally supported by the results. The adaptation appraisal had a substantial positive influence on adaptation intention, explaining 68% of the variance. The qualitative findings also showed that the residents were fearful and anxious about current and future flooding risks. The households in the informal settlement also perceived that adaptation actions could be effective in reducing flooding risks and impacts. The qualitative results concurred with the quantitative results, underlining that household experiences and appraisals are vital in households’ flood risk adaptation intentions. The results revealed that there was a general willingness and intention to undertake adaptation measures against flooding. Crucially, the results indicated that flood experience and coping experience positively influenced the flood risk adaptation intentions of households in the informal settlement. The research results also found that informal settlement households place a greater emphasis on the response efficacy of adaptation measures than the cost or their self-efficacy. The findings of the research have, therefore, underscored the relevance of household experiences and appraisals to flood risk adaptation intentions in informal settlements, which may be crucial to aid transition, beyond coping, to adaptation to the impacts of climate change.
- Subject
- adaptation intention; flood risk appraisal; flood experience; coping experience; informal settlements; protection motivation theory; Ghana; coping; structural equation modelling
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1432279
- Identifier
- uon:39037
- Rights
- Copyright 2021 Jerry Chati Tasantab
- Language
- eng
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 3 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 338 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |