Globally, disasters are seen to have one of the most devastating effects on economic development, livelihood, agriculture, health, social and human life.
Disasters are said to be sudden, accidental event that causes many deaths and injuries. A large number of disasters in the world also result in significant property damages that are commonly natural causes. These include floods, hurricanes and typhoons, earthquakes and tornadoes. Tsunamis, wildfires, volcanic eruptions and landslides are among the other natural forces that sometimes cause disasters.
Not all disasters are caused by the natural forces. Many modern-day disasters are caused by activities of man which include accidents of airplanes, ships, or railways, collapse of buildings, bridges, tunnels, and mines, as well as fire explosions triggered by humans.
Floods are among the most frequent and costly natural disasters in terms of their devastating effects on the lives of victims and human settlements. Our inability to predict floods are one of the major challenges some countries worldwide face. An internet search on floods using Google reveals that an estimated 1.6 million deaths occur globally within one year due to the inability of the affected countries to address such challenges.
Types of floods include riverine, estuarine, coastal, catastrophic and muddy. Riverine floods occur when there is runoff from prolonged rainfall and rapid melt of snow exceeding the capacity of a river’s channel. The causes of these include heavy rains from monsoons, hurricanes and tropical depressions.
In Ghana, seasonal floods are among the most frequent and devastating natural disaster that affects the livelihood of the people.
Tolon/Kumbungu district of the northern region is one the district that is mostly hit by the seasonal floods every year. It has a population of 132,383 with 85% of the population engaged in peasant farming, petty trading and fishing activities along the white volta. Communities along the white volta in the district are the most heavily hit by the floods every year. These communities include Tapia No.1 and No.2, Nawuni, Dalun, Dalun-Kukuo, Wantugu, Wala, Walshie, Gbanjogla among others.
The effects of the floods in these communities can be discussed under three main topics:
Primary effects of floods that include casualties of livestock as a result of drowning are experienced every year, even though human casualties are not rampant.
The secondary effects include contamination of water bodies resulting in outbreak of cholera and other water borne diseases. Food shortage due to total lost of harvest are seriously experienced by the affected communities in the district.
The tertiary effects that occur as a result of economic hardship, rehabilitation of roads, schools, dams, price hikes in food stuff, resettlement of victims among others are experienced not only in the affected communities but also the district in totality.
1.2 Problem Statement
Seasonal floods as already mentioned, are among the most frequent and devastating natural disaster that affects the livelihood of the people in Ghana. Communities along the white volta in the Tolon/Kumbungu district are the most heavily hit by the floods every year. Inadequate awareness creation on the floods, its effects and our inability to predict its occurrence are one of the major challenges we face.
1.3 Research Questions
The purpose of this study is to seek and address the following research questions:
Does seasonal floods affect the livelihoods of the affected communities in the district?
What are the current levels of productivity of crops in the study area?
Has seasonal floods contributed to the low income levels of the people in the study area?
What are the livelihoods copping mechanisms adopted by the people in the study area during and after floods?
How is the impact of seasonal floods on the health of farmers in the district?
How effective are the interventions put in place every year to forestall the situation?
1.4 Objective of the Study
The main objective of the study is to find solutions to the causes and effects of seasonal floods on the livelihoods of the people of Tolon/Kumbungu district.
1.5 Specific project objectives:
The specific objectives are to:
To identify and describe the causes and effects of seasonal floods on the livelihoods of the affected communities in the district.
To identify and describe the livelihood copping mechanisms and its effects on the lives of the people in the affected communities.
To assess the effectiveness of all the interventions that are put in place every year to forestall the situation.
1.6 Methodology
Studies of risks of disasters are a process of investigation, identification, characterization, qualitative and quantitative estimation of the dangers, the vulnerability of the exposed elements and the risk, as well as the evaluation of these results. This talks about the types of risk which can be natural, technological or sanitary origin; all the above mentioned talks about “Integral Studies of Risks of Disasters".
Sources of Data
Primary
The study design will be observational, descriptive and purposive sampling. Data for this study will be collected from the affected communities.
A structured questionnaire will be designed and administered to the respondents of the various communities. A separate questionnaire will also be administered to the supporting organisations (District Assembly, NADMO, NGOS, MoFA and MOH).
Secondary
Tolon/Kumbungu District Poverty Profiling, Mapping and Pro- Poor Programme report was used for this work. Reports, articles and other research materials on the above topic from District Assembly, NADMO, NGOS, MoFA and MOH will also be used.
1.7 Significance of the Study
Despite the numerous efforts and interventions that are put in place to forestall the effects of the floods on the livelihood of the affected communities by the district assembly, National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), donor agencies, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and other philanthropic organizations in the area of resettlement of victims, rehabilitation of roads, nutrition and malaria control, education, agriculture and other livelihood programmes, the problem still persist every year. It is based on these facts that the researcher wants to find solutions to the causes and effects of the floods in the district.
The researcher also expects to achieve the following results.
It is expected that the causes and effects of the seasonal floods in the affected communities would be identified and recommend measures to avert the situation.
The study is determined to ensure improvement on family self-reliance through recommendations on alternative livelihood activities.
Further more recommendations will be made on how to predict the occurrence of seasonal floods in order to reduce the damage on their livelihoods.
1.8 Scope of the Study
Tolon/Kumbungu district of the northern region is one the district that is mostly hit by the seasonal floods every year. It has a population of 132,383 with 85% of the population engaged in peasant farming, petty trading and fishing activities along the white volta. Communities along the white volta in the district are the most heavily hit by the floods every year. The study will therefore be limited to six most flood prone communities for the study. These communities include Tapia No.1 and No.2, Nawuni, Dalun, Dalun-Kukuo, Wantugu, Wala, Walshie, Gbanjogla among others.
1.9 Organisation of the Study
The study is organized into five chapters:
Chapter one of the study deals with the introduction to the subject matter and the background of the study area. Chapter two consists of the review of relevant literature on disasters and floods in general. Chapter three deals with the conceptual framework and methodological concept indentifying and describing the causes and effects of the seasonal floods in the district. Chapter four talks about the empirical results obtained from the study and how it is presented, discussed and analysed. Chapter five contains the summary, conclusion and recommendations of the study.
1.10 Limitations of the Study
The perceived limitations of the study are time constraints, lack of co-operation from respondents, inadequate financial resources and inadequate personnel to carryout the work.
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
This section which will be chapter two will review literature according to the objectives of the study and the general impacts of mining. It will also touch on the causes and effects of the seasonal floods on the livelihood of the people in the study area.
3.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter will look at the research design which will include the study area, its location and population size, samplings methods and techniques and data collection methods, tools and its analysis would be looked at in this section..
3.1 The Study Area
Tolon/Kumbungu district of the northern region is one the district that is mostly hit by the seasonal floods every year. It has a population of 132,383 with 85% of the population engaged in peasant farming, petty trading and fishing activities along the white volta. Communities along the white volta in the district are the most heavily hit by the floods every year. These communities include Tapia No.1 and No.2, Nawuni, Dalun, Dalun-Kukuo, Wantugu, Wala, Walshie, Gbanjogla among others. The study will therefore sample out 8 communities out the 22 affected communities for the study.
3.1.1 Population, Location and Size
Tolon/Kumbungu is bounded to the North by West Mamprusi district, to the South and West by-West Gonja District. Whilst Tamale Metropolitan and Savelugu/Nanton districts share the Eastern boundaries with it. It lies between latitudes 90o â€" 201o North and longitude 10o-50o West. The District covers an area of 2,741 sq km about 3.9% of the total land mass of the Northern Region
Population
The population of the district is 132,383 according to the 2000 Population and Housing Census. This consists of 66,494 males and 66,590 females (Annexes 1 Chart 1). It has about 237 settlements/ communities. About 45% of the population is within the ages of 14 and 30, which indicates that the population is youthful.
Family sizes are usually very high averaging between 6-30 members per family. This family system puts so much stress on the scarce resources due to high dependency ratio. It also further aggravates the poverty levels of the people. Agriculture is the mainstay of the district and is left into the hands of the elderly (due to migration of the youth) whose productivity is relatively low. The main agricultural activity in the district is crop farming with cereal crop farming dominating. The main crops grown are maize, rice, millet, yam, cowpea, pigeon pea and Soya beans. Vegetable crops grown include tomatoes, pepper, okra, onion and garden eggs. Cash crops include cotton, tobacco and cashew in small scale. Other agricultural activities include livestock and poultry breeding. The land in that area is very fertile and good for any agricultural intervention. Fishing is also done at Bontanga irrigation dam and along the White Volta basins.
The population density of the district is estimated at 51 inhabitants per square kilometer. There is high illiteracy rate in the district, coupled with low enrolment rates and high dropout rates in the schools. About 85% of the adult population in the district cannot read and write (Annexes 1 Chart 2).
Research Design.
This section discusses how data employed in the study will be collected. These include the data collection, sampling method, questionnaire administration and data analysis
3.2.1 Data collection
The data to be gathered for study will be predominantly qualitative and quantitative in line with the specific research objectives. It will consist of a primary and secondary data. The primary data will be derived from relevant individuals, groups through focal group discussions, interviewing key and relevant informants, observations and questionnaires administration.
The questionnaire to be used will be both the open and close ended type questionnaires. It will be categorized in to three sections touching on the seasonal floods in the study area, the causes and effect of the seasonal floods on the livelihoods of the people in the study. The researcher will use questionnaire because it will greatly help respondents give specific and direct answers to questions asked. It will also not allow the interviewer to go beyond any extra questioning that will not contribute to achieving the stipulated research objectives. But prior to the interview, a focus group discussion would be undertaken to explain the purpose of the study and the questionnaire to them. Respondents who can read would be given the questionnaire to answer while those who cannot read and understand would be interviewed.
Pre-testing of the questionnaire will be done at Nawuni of the affected communities to help the research fine tune irrelevant questions, improve on the skills of the questionnaire administrators in order to have reliable and efficient data.
The secondary data sources will consist of a desk study of books, dissertations, journals, correspondence, relevant information from the ministry of food and agriculture, the mining companies, the chamber of mines, the district assembly and the internet to extract information and statistics for the study.
3.2.2 Sampling Method
The target population for this study will be the households with farmers being the sampling units of the study area. The population for the three study area is estimated at 132,383 people (Ghana Population and Housing Census, 2000). A simple random sampling technique will be used to determine the required population for the study which requires that a minimum of one percent (1%) and above of the total population be used in calculating for the sample size. This sampling is used because all samples of the same size have an equal chance of being selected from the population.
Since it is impossible to deal with the entire population in these study areas due to resources, time and qualifies enumerators constrains, a representative sample of 1% of the population of the study area would be used as the optimal sample size as.
3.2.3 Data Analysis
Before and after methods would be used to analyze the data from the study with simple statistical tools like SPSS and excel sheets. Analysis will be presented in graphs, charts and frequency distribution tables. The research will try to compare data in the period when there were no floods and the period with floods and its impact on the livelihood of the affected communities.
