Causes, impacts and coping strategies of floods in Ghana: a systematic review

Urban flooding has become a major problem in many parts of the world due to its social, economic and environmental impact. In Ghana, flood occurs every year, which adversely affects livelihoods, property, infrastructure, lives and renders many people homeless. In this paper, we aim to understand the current state of flood research in Ghana, focusing on how the scholarly community has approached the causes, effects/impact, and the coping strategies adopted by people in the urban setting. Drawing on a comprehensive literature review, combined with individual co-author in-depth experience in research and practice in Ghana, we searched academic database such as SCOPUS, Web of Science, Springer, Taylor and Francis, Science Direct and Google scholar for recent studies. Our results, on the basis of 33 articles, indicate that poor urban planning and development (number of reported articles, n = 18), poor and inadequate drainage facilities (n = 11), poor environmental attitude (n = 10) and extreme rainfall (n = 8) are the top causes of urban flood in Ghana. The most commonly reported impacts/effects were physical cost (n = 7), destruction of economic infrastructure (n = 5) and health concerns (n = 4). The most reported coping strategies were relocation and protection of properties ( n = 9) and construction of drains (n = 8). The review also pointed out critical research gaps in the context of Ghana and suggested a new area for future research direction and practice.