THE PROBLEM OF ANNUAL OCCURRENCES OF FLOODS IN ACCRA: AN INTEGRATION OF HYDROLOGICAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES

Accra, the capital city of Ghana, like many cities in Africa (especially Sub-Saharan Africa) is vulnerable to natural hazards and disasters. The cause of natural disasters and hazards in Ghana has been mainly from water through flooding or stormy rain or drought, and bush fires. The occurrences of floods in Accra have become an annual event with severe consequences mostly felt by the urban poor. We present a brief discussion on the annual occurrences of floods in Accra, Ghana by adopting an integrated approach including hydrological, economic and political perspectives. The social and economic damage costs of floods in Accra and Ghana are presented and analyzed. Case study of recent types and causes of floods in Accra are presented. The weaknesses in the responses to the management of floods in Accra and Ghana are indicated. We also argue that for measures taken in dealing with the annual occurrences of floods in Accra to be effective, the hydrological, economic and political perspectives have to be integrated. The first measure should target the flood-prone areas and these should be “proactive” measures rather than “reactive” measures. Further, the impacts of floods are not evenly distributed with the worse affected areas and people being the slums and urban poor respectively. We conclude by making some recommendations to help improve the intervention options and protection measures available to policy makers in ensuring that Accra becomes a flood-free city and also highlights areas for future research.