Appraisal of Knowledge, Perceptions and Adaptation to Flood Risks in the Downstream Section of River Niger Flood Plain in Mokwa Local Government Area of Niger State
Authors: Nagya Abubakar , Kuso Umar , Muhammad Muhammad 
Published: February 2025

Flood is a well-known phenomenon in the flood plain of River Niger that has continues to pose
serious multiple threats to the inhabitants. Despite the risk involved, the communities
continue to occupy the area using their creative set of profound local knowledge, perceptions
and adaptive initiatives, because of its economic benefits. However, existing approaches to flood risk
reduction and management by stakeholders at local levels over the years have not produced the
desired results. This is partly because of the conventional conceptualization by the stakeholders that
has overlooked and ignored local knowledge, perceptions and adaptive initiatives in the management
of flood plain areas. This neglect is partly due to the lack of real evidence base to understand the
importance of local knowledge, perceptions and adaptive initiatives of flood plain communities.
Hence, the search to identify this evidence base to understand the importance of this initiatives of
flood plain communities has prompted the need for this study. The study however, identify and
appraises the community's knowledge, perceptions and adaptation initiatives with a view to
understanding it importance to flood risk management for safer floodplain habitation. In order to
achieve this, the research adopted mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative) for data collection.
There are 46 settlements with 26,851persons in area. Nine (9) settlements were selected using
purposive sampling and 392 respondents with 15 interviews and 9 FGDs participants were used. The
respondents include the household heads while interviews and FGDs involves village heads,
members of Community associations, elderly community members, religious leaders, lead farmers
and youth representatives. The participants were selected systematically in consultation with Village
Heads. The findings indicated that communities have a good deal of knowledge and experience
regarding local risk and hazards in the floodplain area and have developed forecasting techniques to
predict flood occurrence and adaptive initiatives to manage the conditions at the household and
community levels. Significant variations in residents' perceptions of risk and what makes them
vulnerable in the floodplain have developed between geographical locations in the rural setting (i.e.
farmers and fisher men), and among different socio-economic groups (i.e. age, income and
employment characteristics). Recommendations highlighted the need for integration of the diversity
of the identified local knowledge and adaptive initiatives with the scientific or conventional
knowledge. The Government and Community Based organizations (CBOs) dealing with flood
disasters in the flood plain area should focus on preparedness by enhancing local adaptive capacities
on protection measures in anticipation of future flood events. Flood warning activities tailored to
local social contexts will be instrumental in reducing risk and strengthening capacity of the affected communities to respond more effectively to flood emergencies.