The Interplay between Urban Development Patterns and Vulnerability to Flood Risk in Kisumu City, Kenya

Abstract

Flooding is becoming a predominantly urban event in recent times. However, the reason why urban areas are becoming places of flood risk has not been clearly understood. Even though past studies had explained the flood risk as a function of the natural and physical environment, more recent studies are now attributing the escalation of urban flood risk to the overall patterns of these areas. Different urban development processes yield dissimilar urban patterns, but how these disparate urban patterns within the same town configure flood risk has not been fully explored. This study attempts to fill this research gap and explores how development processes create urban spatial patterns and further examine how such patterns shape flood risk in Kisumu city.

Keywords: Urban development, spatial patterns, flood risk.