Assessing flood risk in the rural areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan | |
| Author | Ullah, Farman |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.DM-19- |
| Subject(s) | Floods--Pakistan--Risk assessment Disasters--Pakistan |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Disaster Preparedness, Mitigation and Management |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Floods are one of the recurrent phenomena all over the world especially in the South Asian countries including Pakistan. Floods have caused serious disruption to the lives and properties of both urban and rural dwellers of Pakistan. It is thus important to know the factors responsible for the extreme flood events in Pakistan in the recent past. This study has been conducted in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan on household level and it has three main objectives; assessing actual and perceived risk assessment of rural households, their preparedness level to floods and their coping capacity mechanism towards future floods. Multi-stage purposive sampling methodology was used for this purpose. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province was selected in the first stage purposively among the four provinces of Pakistan using multistage sampling due to its high weather risk prone nature caused by heavy and extreme rainfall during monsoon season. In the second stage, District Lower Dir and District Upper Dir were selected purposively among the 25 flood affected districts based on 2010 floods. In total, there are 65 Union Council in both these districts (37 in Dir Lower and 28 in Dir Upper). In the third stage, two union councils were selected based on PDMA contingency report. A proportionate simple random sampling was drawn from the two union councils. The sample size was calculated to be 382 households, out of which 110 were collected from union council Munjai in Dir Lower and 272 were collected from union council Palam in Dir Upper, using Yamane’s formula. Random sampling was used to collect data from the lowest tier of the household. Random numbers were generated in Excel sheet to conduct the household survey. Based on field observation, it has been found that the two districts are still at risk to future floods. There are still villages where there is no built infrastructure such as road and suspension bridges to connect them to the rest of the district. Similarly, many of the sampled villages are located in between two streams having highest risk to flash floods as they are in the paths of the streams. The population affected from 2010 floods has moved to a more vulnerable location on high slope areas where there is the risk of landslides induced debris flow. Apart from this, the government relief has yet to reach to the affected population who had lost their agricultural land, houses, livestock, businesses and properties. An alarming trend has been observed at the community level of forest being used as a source of income, thus exacerbating the vulnerability of the downstream communities to future floods. Alongside this, the phenomenon of thunderstorm is also one of the main reasons for the community’s vulnerability and extreme floods risk. It came to our knowledge through focus groups and individual interviews that people living up-hill use aerial firing to inform the downstream communities whenever thunderstorm or heavy rainfall occurs. The use of aerial firing is another dangerous practice which can be fatal to anyone in the nearby communities hence making them more vulnerable. It is recommended that the government promote DRR education in the local school curricula, provide other means of livelihood while banning forest cutting, allocate funds for infrastructure development, involve relevant and important stakeholders in the local government actions, plans and policies. |
| Year | 2019 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development + School of Engineering and Technology |
| Department | Department of Development and Sustainability (DDS) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Disaster Preparedness, Mitigation and Management (DM) |
| Chairperson(s) | Ahmad, Mokbul Morshed |
| Examination Committee(s) | Shrestha, Sangam;Thi, Phuoc Lai Nguyen |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | His Majesty The King’s Scholarships (Thailand) |
| Degree | Thesis (M. Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2019 |