Sustainable Urban Regeneration Understanding Urban Flooding in Dakar, Senegal Center for Sustainable Urban Regeneration XXXXX XXXXX The University of Tokyo Understanding Urban Flooding in Dakar, Senegal Tomohito Okuda (Urban planning, The University of Tokyo) 1. Urban flooding in Dakar of Dakar, Guédiawaye, Pikine and Rufisque (Fig. 1). Today’s Dakar Metropolitan Area covers Growing worldwide interest in urban flood departments of Dakar, Guédiawaye and Pikine risk in developing countries, especially in and a part of Rufisque. In this paper, ‘Dakar’ Sub-Saharan Africa, can be viewed from a variety without explanation means ‘Dakar Region’, and of aspects such as climate change, rapid ‘peri-urban areas’ means the areas of Pikine and urbanization or poverty. The following is a typical Guediawaye. scenario: rapid urban growth becomes unmanageable for the “formal” procedure of In the Republic of Senegal, more than 42% development within existing legislation, and urban of the population lives in cities. The average Fig. 1 Four depertments of Dakar Region poor who need a place to live construct houses on annual rate of change of the urban population of Source: Author a flood-prone areas, for example steep slopes or Senegal between 2005 and 2010 is estimated at low-lying grounds near water stream. Such a 3.22% (UN-DESA/PD, 2010). The region of Dakar poor. Over 90% of the population in peri-urban process is promoted under a wide range of covers only 0.3 % of the national territory but Dakar lives in areas classified as slums or conditions, including change in the pattern of hosts about 21 % of the national population (2.6 spontaneous settlements. It is said that its precipitation because of global climate change, million) and concentrates formal and informal unplanned urbanization, lack and disfunction of outflow of rural population because of agricultural economic activities (ANSD, 2011). The climate is drainage systems are major factors of flood risk intensification and population growth, or poor land semi-arid with two seasons: the dry season (Wang, H. G. et al., 2009; The Republic of management systems. (October to June) and the rainy season (July to Senegal, 2010). Flooding has been identified as one of the September) (Fig. 2). The average annual major factors preventing Africa’s growing precipitation between 2000 and 2009 is 354 mm Generally, urban floods in Dakar are viewed population of city dwellers from escaping poverty (Agence Nationale de la Météorologie Sénégal, as a mixture of pluvial floods and groundwater (ActionAid, 2006). All African coastal cities face 2011). floods, combinated with artificial system failures. growing urban flood risk, as a consequence of Jha, A. et al. (2012) define urban floods as rapid urbanization, income gap, poor government From 1980 to 2008, floods have affected an follows: capacity and many other reasons. Moreover, the estimated 400,000 to 600,000 people a year and poor in Africa are far more the victims than caused significant damage on infrastructure, Urban floods typically stem from a complex contributors to global climate change. public equipment and private property. In recent combination of causes. The urban environment years, especially serious damage was recorded in is subject to the same natural forces as the The same can be said for Dakar, this 2005, 2008 and 2009. According to the natural environment and the presence of urban paper’s focus, where urban floods have become a government, about 360,000 people were directly settlements exacerbates the problem. Urban major problem since the late 1980’s. Here we affected in 2009. The cost of the 2009 flooding in areas can be flooded by rivers, coastal floods, understand the complex mechanism of urban Senegal was assessed at USD 104 million. The pluvial and groundwater floods and artificial flooding and highlight some political influence in peri-urban areas of Dakar were the most affected, system failures,… (Jha, A. et al., 2012, p.57) the process in the past. with the cost of flooding estimated at 82 million Senegal has a land area of 196,722 km2 and USD. (The Republic of Senegal, 2010) Among them, groundwater flooding tends to a population of about 12,970,000 (July 2012 est.) The peri-urban Dakar is crowded with urban make long-lasting direct damage. Since (CIA, 2012). Dakar, its capital city, groundwater flooding depends on a complex is located at the westernmost tip of mechanism of soil, it is poorly understood, often the African continent. confused with surface water flooding (Hughes, The definition of “Dakar” A.G. et al., 2011) 1). requires attention. As administrative districts of Senegal, In Dakar, many houses remain inundated there are “City of Dakar (Ville de throughout both the wet and dry seasons. There Dakar)”, “Department of Dakar are also abandoned houses because of serious (Département de Dakar)”, which inundation over a year (Fig. 3). Urban floods have consists of only one city, City of large impacts particularly in terms of social and Dakar, and “Dakar Region (Région Fig. 2 Average monthly precipitation, economic losses both directly and indirectly. de Dakar)”, which consists of four Dakar Hôpital (1896-1944) and Dakar Yoff (1947-2009) Besides serious health problems, residents in the departments including Department Source: ONAS et al. (2010) flood-prone areas often suffer a loss of mobility, Sustainable Urban Regeneration Vulnerable Studies Center for Sustainable Urban Regeneration XXXXX XXXXX The University of Tokyo Understanding Urban Flooding in Dakar, Senegal Tomohito Okuda (The University of Tokyo) workplaces and property. Since schools are often used as a shelter after heavy rainfall, children sometimes cannot go to school for several weeks or months (The Republic of Senegal, 2010). Fig. 3 Inundated house, Pikine, Dakar Source: Author, Nov. 2011 Although many studies about flooding of Dakar have been undertaken to date, most of Fig. 4 Topographical map of Dakar them understand causality of flooding only Source: ONAS et al. (2010), Annexe A6.2-a A3C; Legend and letters: adapted by the author. partially. Thus, the following sections will consider the direct and indirect causes of flooding based infrastructure networks of roads and buildings on the facts revealed by existing documents, and were made inside the water streams without any provide the most likely mechanism of flood drainage system and became a factor in flooding. occurrence. (5) Finally, the settlements in depressions make it easy for water to accumulate, causing flooding triggered by recent comeback of rainfall and 2. Previous understanding of causality extreme pluvial events. These processes can be drawn as Fig. 5. Most literature to date understands the cause of the urban flood in Dakar as a The above-mentioned story by Mbow, C. et consequence of informal urbanization and Fig. 5 Conceptual model of flooding in positive rainfall trend. According to Mbow, C. et al. Yeumbeul by Mbow, C. et al. (2008) (2008), the origin of urban flooding goes back to extreme droughts since the 1970’s 2). Using most of the poor migrants from rural areas. (3) rainfall record, Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and They acquired lands in the informal pathways past remote-sensing data in Yeumbeul district, and constructed informal urban settlements on one of the flood-prone peri-urban districts of the abandoned lands near water streams. (4) Dakar, they analyzed land cover change of the Expansion of built area means decreasing district since 1954 to track the causes of flooding rainwater infiltration into soil and occurring regularly since 1989. In consequence, increasing runoff, which favors rapid Fig. 6 Locations of the samples in Tab. 1 and Dakar they describe the causality of urban flooding as flooding situations. Moreover, Source: Author follows. (1) Because of long-lasting Tab. 1 Precipitation in 8 western regions of Senegal, 1960-1993 drought since the 1970’s, the rural agricultural lands in Senegal became Region Period Bambey Diourbel Fatick Kaolack Khombole M’Bour Thiès Tivaouane Average unproductive and caused a surge of 1960-9 645 650 690 727 622 754 595 543 657 migrants to cities. (2) Meanwhile, 1970-9 478 509 516 530 438 453 483 409 477 1980-9 471 411 599 549 481 465 411 436 481 depressions in Dakar’s peri-urban 1990-3 473 – 547 – 484 482 404 447 469 areas (cf. Fig. 4) got dry up and Average 525 518 592 602 507 551 485 458 530 became a possible housing site for Source: Guèye, C. et al. (2007). Sustainable Urban Regeneration Vulnerable Studies Center for Sustainable Urban Regeneration XXXXX XXXXX The University of Tokyo Understanding Urban Flooding in Dakar, Senegal Tomohito Okuda (The University of Tokyo) al. gives the outline of the interpretation by the majority of people at the time. Guèye, C. et al. (2007) collected the precipitation records in eight western regions of Senegal (Fig. 6) between 1960 and 1993 and confirmed the decrease in precipitation after 1970 in all samples (Tab. 1). According to them, “Drought, the unequal redistribution of the rural population, the need to leave fallow land used for peanuts crops, and the impoverishment of land suitable for agriculture leave a substantial portion of arable land uncultivated. … [The rural population] migrate Fig. 7 Evolution of urbanized areas in Dakar progressively toward Dakar, Touba and Mbour, or Source: Author, based on CAUS - BCEOM (2006) to foreign countries (Guèye, C. et al., 2007, pp. 89-90)”. As is evident from Fig. 7, most of the immediately lead to the occupation of lands in the after 1970. Even though the drought could have peri-urban areas of Dakar have been urbanized peri-urban Dakar. The evolution of urban and rural promoted the migration of rural dwellers to cities between 1954 and 1985. However, we can find population of Senegal shows rapid increases in to some degree, it is debatable whether the rapid some questionable points here.