Farmers Perception and Adaptation to Flood Events in Part of Kaduna Basin, Nigeria

Abstract

Flood events have been perilous to people, communities and institutions. Recently, Baggi, Masalachi, Fokpo, Sosu and Wuya areas of Kaduna Basin have been affected by flooding chasing the inhabitants away and often destroy lives, farmland arid properties. The aim of this study was to examine farmers' perception and adaptation to flood events in. Kaduna Basin,, Nigeria. The data collection instruments include questionnaire, field survey and oral interview and methods of data analysis were arithmetic mean and frequency percentage. The finding revealed that long duration of stormy windy rains ranked the highest with 108 respondents, changes in rainfall pattern ranked second with 90 respondents, information from NISEMA ranked third with 73 respondents and climate change ranked the least with 33 respondents. This revealed that the respondents have high degree of awareness and understanding of food events, in adaptation strategies, the finding revealed that flood forecasting and warning schemes ranked the highest with 69 (38.5%) of the respondents engineering scheme ranked second with 46 (25.7%) of the respondents flooding plain zoning ranked third with 27 (15.1%) of the respondents public relief funds ranked forth with 19 (10.6%) of the respondents flood protection scheme ranked fifty with 11 (6.1%) of the respondents flood abatement scheme ranked sixth with 7 (3.9%) of the respondents and flood insurance ranked the least with no response. Tis therefore, recommended that the relevant authorities should delineate both the non-flood areas and flood area. The non-flood areas can serve as a temporary shelter for the settlement during floods. Government and key stakeholders should engage the farmers and local authorities in making them aware of the flood risk in view of the climate variability.