The relative contributions of climatic elements and environmental factors to flooding in Awka urban area

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to determine the relative contributions of climatic elements and environmental factors to urban flooding in Awka urban area of Anambra State. Towards achieving this aim, 10 year (2000-2009) meteorological data of temperature and rainfall of the study area were collected from synoptic meteorological station in Awka and data on environmental factors were obtained from both the Anambra State Ministry of Environment and responses were gathered from the administered questionnaire to the respondents. Khosla’s formula was employed to estimate flood discharge in the urban area and analysis was carried out with the use of multiple linear regression (MLR). Result of the regression shows that 12 variables exhibited positive signs showing that there is a direct relationship between them and flooding in the town. Also, it was found that both climatic and environmental factors contributed 60% to the explained variation, with the climatic elements alone having 33.7%. Finally, policy and planning implications of the study were discussed, while it was concluded that urgent necessary steps need to be taken to achieve goal 7 of the MDGs in the study area, which is to ensure environmental sustainability by the year 2015.

Key words: Climatic, flooding, synoptic, regression, sustainability.