Caught Between Extremes: Understanding Human-Water Interactions During Drought-To-Flood Events in the Horn of Africa

Disaster risks are the results of complex spatiotemporal interactions between risk components, impacts and societal response. The complexities of these interactions increase when multi-risk events occur in vulnerable contexts characterized by ethnic conflicts, unstable governments, and high levels of poverty, resulting in impacts that are larger than anticipated. Yet, only few multi-risk studies explore human-environment interactions, as most studies are hazard-focused, consider only a single-type of multi-risk interaction, and rarely account for spatiotemporal dynamics of risk components. Here, we developed a step-wise, bottom-up approach, in which a range of qualitative and semi-quantitative methods was used iteratively to reconstruct interactions and feedback loops between risk components and impacts of consecutive drought-to-flood events, and explore their spatiotemporal variations. Within this approach, we conceptualize disaster risk as a set of multiple (societal and physical) events interacting and evolving across space and time. The approach was applied to the 2017-2018 humanitarian crises in Kenya and Ethiopia, where extensive flooding followed a severe drought lasting 18-24 months. The events were also accompanied by government elections, crop pest outbreaks and ethnic conflicts. Results show that (a) the highly vulnerable Kenyan and Ethiopian contexts further aggravated drought and flood impacts; (b) heavy rainfall after drought led to both an increase and decrease of the drought impacts dependent on topographic and socio-economic conditions; (c) societal response to one hazard may influence risk components of opposite hazards. A better understanding of the human-water interactions that characterize multi-risk events can support the development of effective monitoring systems and response strategies.

Automated summary

Disaster risks are the outcomes of complex interactions between risk components, impacts, and societal response. When multi-risk events occur in vulnerable contexts, the complexities of these interactions increase, resulting in impacts that are larger than expected. This study applied a step-wise, bottom-up approach to investigate the multi-risk events in the humanitarian crises of Kenya and Ethiopia, and found that vulnerable contexts further aggravated the impacts, heavy rainfall after drought had different effects depending on topographic and socio-economic conditions, and societal response to one hazard may influence risk components of opposite hazards. Understanding the human-water interactions in multi-risk events can help develop effective monitoring systems and response strategies.