VAC ZAMBIA Vulnerability Assessment Committee 2010/11 FLOODS MONITORING REPORT BY THE ZAMBIA VULNERABILITY ASSESMENT COMMITTEE FEBRUARY 2011 Lusaka Table of Content Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................iii Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................... iv 1.0 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Background .......................................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Objectives ............................................................................................................................ 1 1.3. Criteria and Scope of the Floods MonitoringExercise ..................................................... 1 1.4. Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 2 1.5. Limitations of the Assessment ........................................................................................... 2 2. FINDINGS .............................................................................................................................. 3 2.1. Precipitation and Hydrology .............................................................................................. 3 2.2. Human lives at risk ............................................................................................................. 4 2.3. Health ................................................................................................................................... 4 2.4. Water and Sanitation .......................................................................................................... 6 2.5. Agriculture and Commercial Activities at Risk ................................................................ 7 2.6 Education ............................................................................................................................. 9 2.7 Housing, Public Buildings and Transport Services at Risk .............................................. 9 3. CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................................................... 11 4. RECOMMENDATIONS .......................................................................................................... 12 Annex 1a: District level Questionnaire ...................................................................................... 14 Annex 1b: Community Level Questionnaire .............................................................................. 19 Annex 2: Team Composition ....................................................................................................... 25 Annex 3: Rainfall Percentage Departure ................................................................................... 27 Annex 4: Wards and Households at Risk .................................................................................... 28 Annex 5: Districts with Health Centre at Risk in case of Flooding ......................................... 33 Annex 6: Population of Households at Risk of Water Contamination .................................... 36 Annex 7: ANTICIPATED IMPACT ON AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCIAL ACTIVITIES ................ 43 Annex 8: Damage to Schools ....................................................................................................... 44 Annex 9: HOUSES AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS AT RISK ................................................................... 46 Annex 10: ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE AT RISK .............................................................................. 48 ii Acknowledgements The Zambia Vulnerability Assessment Committee wishes to thank the following organizations for facilitating and participating in the Floods Monitoring exercise: • Central Statistics Office (CSO) • Department of Water Affairs (DWA) • Food and Agricultural Organization • Oxfam • United Nations International Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF) • World Food Programme (WFP) • Zambia Meteorological Department (ZMD) The Committee further wishes to express its gratitude to those institutions that supported the exercise financially and logistically. iii Executive Summary Following district reports of rising water levels in rivers, lakes, swamps, dambos and streams, the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit commissioned a Floods Monitoring exercise in twenty (20) districts in Central, Eastern, Lusaka, Southern, Western and North-Western Provinces to ascertain the risk of flooding. The exercise was undertaken from 10 th to 18 th February, 2011. The overall objective of the Floods Monitoring exercise was to assess the risk of flooding and to establish the sectors at risk. Of the twenty (20) assessed districts, only Kazungula and Sinazongwe received below normal rainfall for the period under review while Kaoma and Zambezi received above normal rainfall. Significant deviation from the normal rainfall was experienced in Kaoma where a 38% departure was recorded. The rest of the districts received normal rainfall. Further, analysis of the data collected from the 20 districts indicated that 18% (69, 175 Households) of the total households in the survey area were exposed to flooding. Of the 160 wards that were indicated to be at risk of flooding, 35% (55 wards) were said to be at high risk, 39% (63 wards) at medium risk and the remainder were at low risk. The survey revealed that 11, 094 households (66, 563 people) were at high risk of flooding in 13 of the 20 surveyed districts. In terms of health, the survey found that the case loads of diseases such as malaria, acute respiratory infection, diarrhoea and other diseases were normal. However, all the assessed districts anticipated an increase in the case loads of these diseases. The availability of health supplies was generally adequate except for mosquito nets and antibiotics. The risk to health infrastructure was not very significant in most of the districts assessed. However, accessibility to these health infrastructures was hampered due to washed away bridges and submerged roads especially in North-Western and Western Provinces. In terms of the anticipated loss of yield in the staple crops, the Provinces that are most at risk include Southern, Lusaka and Western. Western and North Western provinces recorded the highest risk of anticipated loss on cash crops and livestock sector. It should be noted that the highest reported risk of crop loss on staple food production is around 25% of the planted crop fields in Southern province and below 15% in the next most at risk province of Lusaka. The anticipated cash crop losses were estimated at between 15% and 20% of the planted area. In the case of education, the data indicated that most of the schools in the surveyed districts of Western Province were already closed due to flooding. The districts where this is the case are Mongu, Kalabo and Senanga. Schools on the West Bank of Chavuma and Zambezi are also likely to get flooded and may cause disruption to the school curricular. Only one school in Sinazongwe indicated that the school was experiencing water contamination and this situation could deteriorate and bring in secondary effects such as cholera which had already been reported in Malima ward. Some extreme impact situations are however reported in Kaoma district where up to 178 mainly mud and pole houses in the Mayukwayukwa Refugee Camp have collapsed including a distribution centre and 8 church structures have collapsed. iv It was concluded that although precipitation for most districts was normal, the risk of flooding was there due to their geographical location, topography and the already high water tables due to the past four consecutive seasons of high rainfall. It was also established that Fifty-five (55) wards in 13 districts were found to be at high risk of flooding. It was also established that some districts were already experiencing flooding. There was a possibility that the case loads of diseases such as malaria, acute respiratory infections and diarrhea were likely to increase. It was established that the availability of health supplies was generally adequate except for mosquito nets and antibiotics. There is a possibility that some health centres will be cut-off as the rain season progresses. Some health infrastructure in Chibombo, Mumbwa and Sinazongwe were reported to be at risk due to lack of maintenance. There was a large number of people accessing unsafe sources of drinking water which predisposed them to water borne diseases. Sinazongwe was singled out as one district experiencing chemical contamination from the coal mining activities. Districts in Southern and Western Provinces were already experiencing human-animal conflict due to the smaller grazing lands for both domestic and wild animals. There was a fear of livestock diseases breaking out in Livestock rearing Provinces such as Southern and Western Provinces due to the flooding which some districts are already experiencing. The survey indicated that there were districts where houses had collapsed. Notable districts were Kaoma, Mongu and Itezhi tezhi. There was generally a big number of infrastructure (roads, bridges and culverts) already requiring attention as most of these are a carry-over from the previous seasons that were also marked