Abstract

Rapid urbanisation of the three Cameroon’s coastal cities of Douala, Kumba and Limbe has provoked and sustained intense competition for the limited space by burgeoning urbanites and broadening scope of lucrative economic activities within the cities. The unfortunate aspect has been that the urban poor are being bided off from suitable land spaces and coerced to source a living on fragile urban zones as river valleys, poorly reclaimed marshes on urban flood plains, which are high risk zones for flooding. Empirical and statistical analyses complemented by field investigations, and mapping techniques have been used to establish and exposed some hitherto latent dimensions of this perennial demise of these urban centres.

Contrary to earlier explanations that saw man as the principal architect of his own doom, present findings reveal but the imposing role of hydroclimatic excesses reinforced by the urban geomorpoholigcal dispositions of these urban landscapes as the primal triggers of this seasonal urban crisis. This makes the hazard of seasonal urban flooding in these cities more of the work of nature than the hand of man. Based on this, it is recommended that current flood management strategies should be restructured to top target the root causes rather than cosmetically targeting the consequences, if these cities must integrate the main path to urban sustainability come 2030 as targeted set in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Keywords: Flood; Urban flooding; Seasonal flooding; Coastal city; Flood risk; Vulnerability; Sustainability