Physical Vulnerability of Buildings to Flooding in Lilongwe City, Malawi
This article is a preprint and is currently undergoing peer review by UCL Open: Environment.
Abstract
Research on flood vulnerability mainly has focused on social, economic and human vulnerability. Not much research has been conducted on the equally important subject of physical vulnerability of buildings which are an important aspect of all human activities. The study investigated the physical vulnerability of buildings to flooding in low-income settlements of Biwi and Kawale1 in Malawi’s capital city, Lilongwe. Geographical information system (GIS) Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression tool and statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) 20 were used to correlate exposure factors and physical vulnerability of buildings. The study found that exposure factors variably influenced the physical vulnerability of individual building types and that building typology and foundation height were also important factors. Irrespective of their location, buildings constructed using fired bricks with cement mortar walls and cement floors had low vulnerability while buildings constructed using fired bricks in mud mortar walls and cement floors had high vulnerability. OLS regression showed that the physical vulnerability was influenced by building typologies and floodwater level with significance value.001(p<.001) and .004(p<.005) respectively. Rather than urban planners and disaster management officials emphasising stream reserves as a preventive measure, advocating the construction of buildings using flood-resistant materials and with high enough foundations in flood-prone areas, should be considered central to urban flood risk reduction. Flood vulnerability studies should be conducted in other flood-prone cities of Malawi to support effective citywide urban planning and disaster risk management.
Keywords: Physical vulnerability, flooding, exposure factors, elements at risk, Lilongwe, Malawi