Understanding flood resilience in rural South Sudan

With the first hints of rain, there is a sudden flurry of activity to prepare shelters for the approaching wet season in South Sudan’s state of Northern Bahr el Ghazal. The heat is still endless, but some days now start with a smell of moisture and, occasionally, a few raindrops.

The roadsides around the city of Aweil are busy with people hauling grass bundles and mahogany timbers to replace roofs that have weakened or collapsed in the last year due to heavy rains and baking sun. Mud bricks dry in the sun, eventually to be used to reinforce sagging walls.

IMPACT Initiatives, a Geneva-based organisation, is conducting research to map vulnerability to flooding in the Northern Bahr el Ghazal and Warrap states, as part of the Building Resilience to Climate Extremes and Disasters (BRACED) programme in South Sudan.

Our team of 17 data collectors has begun assessing the impact of flooding on communities in remote villages, beginning with Aweil South County.

The people we interview are hungry, with their food stores already depleting. Last year the rainy season came late and was short, leading to crop failure, among other threats to their livelihoods. Locals hope that the the rains will be more favourable this year, and that they can start planting crops soon.

Years of irregual rainfall – either too strong or weak –  on top of decades of armed conflict, have left the countryside with little by way of food or finances.

“The floods used to come after the harvest, which was fine,” said an older woman from Maper Akuel Liec village. “But now they come earlier and earlier, destroying our crops.We’re dying here”.

THE ROAD AHEAD

Over the next seven weeks of our data collection mission, the team will continue to hear words like these as we drive thousands of kilometres on washboard and potholed dirt roads, visiting hundreds of villages across a territory larger than Ireland.

We will speak to community leaders to understand how changes in the duration, intensity and timing of flooding have affected access to critical services such as marketplaces and health care, and what measures communities take to mitigate the impact of seasonal floods.

We will speak to a diverse sample of community members, including groups of women, elderly people and younger adults, to understand how they experience flooding differently, and how its incidence has changed over the last two decades.   

Based on detailed analysis of historic flood data from satellite imagery, as well as the  assessment of long-term weather patterns and climate change literature, this flood vulnerability mapping project conducted for BRACED South Sudan will seek to understand how communities experience flooding, how that impact has changed over time, and what people do as individuals and communities to mitigate the risks.

The project will also identify where people may need assistance to better adapt to the rising tide of climate change, and how best to support them in building resilience.

Finally we will produce a detailed written report, map and online mapping tool in August 2016, which will be disseminated to national and international organisations.