Household disaster awareness and preparedness: A case study of flood hazards in Asamankese in the West Akim Municipality of Ghana

Jàmbá: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Household disaster awareness and preparedness: A case study of flood hazards in Asamankese in the West Akim Municipality of Ghana
 
Creator Glago, Frank J.
 
Subject geography and resource development disaster risk awareness; disaster preparedness; Asamankese; flood-prone zone; West Akim Municipality
Description Increasing disasters and their associated devastating impacts on society have called into question the capacity of countries to address disaster occurrences. Hitherto, primary disaster management institutions have addressed disaster in a piecemeal manner, commonly through the distribution of relief items after occurrence of disasters. Considering this shortfall and as a contribution to the current discourse of disaster management, this study investigated households’ awareness and preparedness for flood disasters in Asamankese, a rapidly developing township, which has also seen increase in flood disasters in recent times. To this end, a mixed research method approach was used in both data collection and analysis. A survey was conducted to collect data from 200 households in the township. Two focus group discussions were also organised to gather in-depth insights. The study found that households’ awareness of flood disaster risks was very high in both flood-prone and non-flood-prone ecological zones of Asamankese. Also, notable from the study was that whereas level of awareness was high among residents, preparedness levels were generally low, especially in terms of financial preparedness. Several recommendations were proposed, which include improving public education and sensitisation on flood disaster preparedness strategies, creating financial support scheme for residents to increase their financial preparedness as well as encouraging residents to increase their social capital support and participate in community gatherings.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor None
Date 2019-11-25
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Survey/ Interview
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/jamba.v11i1.789
 
Source Jàmbá: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies; Vol 11, No 1 (2019); 11 pages 1996-1421 2072-845X
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://jamba.org.za/index.php/jamba/article/view/789/1609 https://jamba.org.za/index.php/jamba/article/view/789/1608 https://jamba.org.za/index.php/jamba/article/view/789/1610 https://jamba.org.za/index.php/jamba/article/view/789/1607
 
Coverage Ghana — mixed gendered researched sample; varied ethnicity
Rights Copyright (c) 2019 Frank J. Glago https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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