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The urban development landscape in most developing countries ranges from rich neighbourhoods with infrastructure to poor slum and or informal settlements. These poor city neighbourhoods are more prone to flooding and other natural disasters than wealthy neighbourhoods. These unfavourable initial conditions and disasters then serve as both drivers and consequences of development patterns (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005; Adelekan, 2010). Without adequate spatial planning, governance, regulation, and public spending, increasing numbers of the urban population are living in wetlands and other ecologically sensitive areas. This development pattern is making some suburbs of a large number of African cities vulnerable to natural disasters (Adelekan, 2010). It is predicted that future flood damages will depend greatly on settlement patterns, landuse decisions, quality of flood forecasting, warning and response systems (ActionAid International, 2006; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005; Adelekan, 2010).

Flooding is a natural phenomenon (ActionAid International, 2006). Very often in nature, watersheds get flooded. This natural phenomenon has however become problematic because man is increasingly drawing nearer to these natural systems. The watershed flood frequency

and scale has therefore been intensified by human activities. With improved life styles, industrialisation and urbanisation, watersheds are constantly being inundated with expensive capital goods and infrastructure. The costs of damage due to floods have therefore continually risen (United Nations Inter-Agency Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, 2005; World Meteorological Organisation, 2006; McClean, 2010). Flood research has, therefore, intensified and different methods have been applied in urban flooding in different places with different price tags.

For example, in 1951, a flood along the main stem of the Kansas River was estimated to have affected mostly urban areas because about 90 % (approximately US $479,000,000) of the damage experienced occurred in urban areas. This great loss was used to justify the construction of a stair-step series of lakes in the Kansas River Basin to act as storm water collection sinks (Koilmorgen, 1953). Since then, the flood control plans for the Kansas River Basin alone have been so extended and elaborated that they bear a price tag of billions of dollars. More shattering than the rising costs are the rising number of acres of land that is to be flooded by building more and more dams. These flood control mechanisms contravene both the spirit and purpose of resource conservation. Another good intention with a wrong approach was the building of a series of levées and dredging of channels as a control method of the December 1955 flooding of Santa Cruz. This only resulted in extreme siltation and loss of control of the river. Another flood of Santa Cruz in January 1982 proved that the solution to flooding in urban areas needs a more integrated approach than artificial embankments (Griggs & Paris, 1982). In practice therefore, floods can never be eliminated entirely. However, the vulnerability to floods can be mitigated by integration of physical developments with behaviour and actions especially by residents in flood prone areas (United Nations Inter- Agency Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, 2005; APFM, 2006; Egyir, 2008; Akwei, 2010; McClean, 2010).

The scale and frequency of floods has been on the increase in some suburbs of Kumasi, Ghana. For instance, residents of Aboabo and Atonsu all in the Aboabo Basin are frequent victims of floods (Egyir, 2008; Akwei, 2010). However, most of the wetland research conducted in Kumasi has been on vegetable farming and water quality in river basins of Kumasi (Keraita et al., 2003; Obuobie et al., 2006; Keraita et al., 2008a, b; Lydecker, & Drechsel, 2010). Egyir (2008) and Akwei (2010) worked on physical flood control and coping strategies to flooding in the Aboabo Basin. The watershed hydrology and causes of annual floods have not been determined by any research but public opinion attributes the floods to

obstructed water ways and climate change (Akwei, 2010; Ghana News Agency, 2010). How much and which of the annual floods is attributable to each of these factors is not known. According to Bhaskar & Singh (1988), Odemerho (1993), and the United Nations Inter- Agency Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (2005), the problems of floods in third World cities are compounded by the rapid rate of urban expansion into urban fringe areas often unaccompanied by the development of storm drainage systems. The effectiveness of wetlands for flood abatement may vary depending on the size of the wetland, type and condition of vegetation (Ot’ahel’ová et al., 2007), slope, and location of the wetland in the flood path and the saturation of wetland soils before flooding (Bhaskar & Singh, 1988). Urbanisation destroys these qualities of wetlands and aggravates flooding because large parts of the ground are covered with roofs, roads and pavements and building drains. As a result, even quite moderate storms produce high overland flows quickly filling up river channels (Griggs & Paris, 1982; United Nations Inter-Agency Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, 2005; McClean, 2010). Therefore with increased climate and landscape variability, most floods are getting out of hand and cannot be predicted accurately.

Early flood control and protection approaches have been based on structural solutions like embankments, bypass channels, dams, reservoirs, storm drains etc. This approach resulted in changes in flow regimes, separation of rivers from flood plains and in most cases increased flood regimes (Koilmorgen, 1953; Griggs & Paris, 1982). There is now a shift from flood control to flood management (Integrated Flood Management) with the recognition that floods are a natural river phenomenon (World Meteorological Organisation, 2006; Adelekan, 2010). Flood management is more holistic and carried out through a public policy framework. This integrated flood management approach is, however, not developed in Ghana. Food management is reactionary through the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) in collaboration with the District Assemblies. In most places, mitigation measures depend on resources available to the District Assembly and political expediency.