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Ecohealth and Climate Change: Adaptation to Flooding Events in Riverside Secondary Cities, West Africa

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Resilient Cities

Part of the book series: Local Sustainability ((LOCAL,volume 1))

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Abstract

In 2009, for the first time in history, more people were found to live in urban areas than in rural settings. Predictions for 2025 are that 70% of the world’s population will be urban. Urban dwellers in particular, then, will need to adapt to climate change. Urbanization occurs at a rapid pace in secondary cities across Africa. Indeed, half the increase of urban populations in the coming years is expected to occur in secondary cities. Poor settlements near water bodies (rivers, irrigation systems and large dams) are prone to flooding, which is likely to be exacerbated by climate change. Employing an ecohealth approach, this study explores the vulnerabilities and resilience of poor urban settlers in four secondary cities of West Africa, all located in close proximity to water bodies: Korhogo, Côte d’Ivoire (212,000 inhabitants, near a dam); Kaédi, Mauritania (71,000 inhabitants, near a river); Ziguinchor, Senegal (269,000 inhabitants, near a river); and Kara, Togo (120,000 inhabitants, near a river). The aim of this study is to reinforce the resilience of the most vulnerable of these communities and their capacity to adapt to processes of drought and flooding in two climatic contexts: semi-arid and tropical humid. Local governance authorities play a central role in this project, which emphasizes participatory research, and explores linkages between hazards, vulnerabilities and local adaptive capacity potentials, particularly in the water and health sectors.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada, and the programme National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South, Switzerland. It involved the following institutional partners: (1) Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d’Ivoire; (2) University de Cocody-Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire; (3) Université d’Abobo-Adjamé, Côte d’Ivoire; (4) Université de Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire; (5) Université de Ziguinchor, Senegal; (6) Université de Lomé, Togo; (7) Institut National de Recherche en Santé Publique, Nouakchott, Mauritania; (8) Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Switzerland; and (8) University of Basel, Switzerland.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

    Guéladio Cissé, Jürg Utzinger & Marcel Tanner

  2. URES Korhogo/Université de Bouaké and Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

    Brama Koné

  3. Institut National de Recherches en Santé Publique, Nouakchott, Mauritania

    Hampaté Bâ

  4. Department of Geography, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Ziguinchor, Ziguinchor, Senegal

    Ibrahima Mbaye

  5. Unité de Recherche sur les Agro-ressources et la Santé Environnementale, Ecole Supérieure d’Agronomie, Université de Lomé, Lomé, Togo

    Koffi Koba

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  1. Guéladio Cissé
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  2. Brama Koné
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  3. Hampaté Bâ
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  7. Marcel Tanner
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Correspondence to Guéladio Cissé .

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  1. Global Secretariat, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainabi, Kaiser Friedrich Strasse 7, Bonn, 53113, Germany

    Konrad Otto-Zimmermann

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Cissé, G. et al. (2011). Ecohealth and Climate Change: Adaptation to Flooding Events in Riverside Secondary Cities, West Africa. In: Otto-Zimmermann, K. (eds) Resilient Cities. Local Sustainability, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0785-6_6

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