Effects of 2010 Floods on Livelihoods and Households Food Security in Pru District of Ghana.

Abstract

Seasonally communities in Pru District (PD) of Ghana that are within the banks of the Volta River experience flood to the extent that it causes damages to human lives and other properties. The floods of 2010 brought a lot of problems and untold hardships on the affected victims in the District. A mixed methodological approach including field investigation, questionnaire survey, structured and face-to- face interviews were employed in gathering data for the study. The key findings established to be the causes of floods in the study area include torrential rains, spillage of Bagre (in Burkina Faso) and Akosombo Dams (Volta Basin), lack of drainage systems and building / farming on flood plains. Based on the sources and speed of onset of flood; three types of floods were identified in the study area: flash floods due to heavy rains, slow – rise floods due to gradual build-up of water in an area and river floods due to increase in volume of drainage basins by spillage of dams and torrential rains. About 60 hectares of farmland was totally inundated by floods in the year 2010.The study revealed that respondents with single livelihood strategies were adversely affected by floods more than those with multiple livelihood strategies.