Twentieth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

The increase in extreme climatic conditions worldwide has stimulated numerous scholars’ growing interest in measuring people’s resilience through indicator-based measures, while less consideration is given to the subjective approach centered on self-well-being estimation. Filling this gap has led this study to use a subjective approach based on three properties of resilience (people’s perceived preparedness capacity to counter flood effects on their livelihoods; people’s confidence level to recover from a flood disaster aftermath; and people’s confidence in changing their income sources sensitive to flooding) to assess flood resilience among smallholder farmers in Upper Guinea. Descriptive statistics and probit regression analysis were used to characterize these three properties of resilience and identify the underlying factors that explain households’ resilience to episodic floods. The results disclose a very low level of flood resilience among respondents within the three dimensions: preparedness (37.86%), recovery (30.46%), and adjusting to change (39.86%), while gender-based disparities disadvantaged most women (23%, 26%, and 25%) compared to men (39%, 30% and 41%). Probit regression analysis showed that the ownership of assets (OAs), indigenous knowledge (IK), and livelihood diversification (LD), were key factors shaping farmers’ flood resilience, while household size (HS), was a key factor decreasing resilience. The results indicate a strong connection between households’ flood resilience and their socioeconomic characteristics in terms of OAs, IK, and LD, which need to be improved to strengthen farmers’ resilience.