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Geo-hydrological hazards (landslides and floods) are often associated with significant damages on physical infrastructure like buildings and roads. Understanding the factors controlling the extent of damage is a prerequisite for quantitatively estimating risk and its spatial distribution, and advising on measures to reduce vulnerability. In this study we document the impact of 64 landslide and six flood events in four selected districts in western Uganda for the period May 2019 - March 2021 through extensive fieldwork. We quantify in economic value the physical damage of landslide and flood hazards on exposed buildings, roads and bridges. We then analyse the physical vulnerability based on damage ratios and determine the factors (building material, hazard characteristics and age of the building) that control the degree of damage using fractional logistic regression. Out of the 91 buildings affected by landslides, 54% were totally destroyed, and only 10% not or minorly damaged, for an average damage cost of 3,179 USD/building. For the 212 documented buildings affected by floods, 35% were totally destroyed, 28% had severe to moderate damage and the rest were minorly or not affected, with an average damage costs of 1,755 USD/building. The physical vulnerability of buildings to landslides depends on the size of the landslide, age of the building, type of building wall material and the steepness of the slope cut to establish an artificial foundation platform. On the other hand, the physical vulnerability of buildings to flood hazards is largely controlled by the flood depth, the distance from the river channel, slope, size of flooded area and type of floor material. The physical vulnerability functions developed in this study are being used as a new inputs into a regional quantitative model of geo-hydrological risks. Combining the hazard estimates with the most accurate information on exposure of physical infrastructure, will facilitate the identification of the types of events and the locations that require most attention for risk reduction.

Effective disaster risk reduction is often hampered by a general scarcity of reliable data collected on disastrous events, particularly in the Global South. Novel approaches are therefore necessary to alleviate this constraint, particularly with regard to reducing extensive risks. A geo-observer network, consisting of 21 reporters, was established in the Rwenzori region (Uganda) in February 2017 to collect data on eight different disasters using smartphone technology. Within the first 15 months of operation, a total of 319 disaster reports were submitted. A large majority of the reported disasters were reached by the geo-observers within 2 days after their occurrence. The analysis of reporting activity shows a large divergence, with one third of the most active geo-observers accounting for nearly 75% of all reports. By using an existing landslide susceptibility map as a proxy of expected landslide prevalence, this reporting divergence is demonstrated to be at least partially driven by a difference in disaster occurrences. This is confirmed by the results of a survey held among the geo-observers. Survey results also showed that the participants are more driven by non-pecuniary benefits rather than financial compensation. The data collected during the first 15 months of operation indicates that extensive risks in the region are underestimated and demonstrates the added value of participatory sensing to compensate for the current lack of well-functioning official data collection mechanisms. This pilot project is a proof of concept for participatory sensing to collect high quality data even in remote contexts where smartphone technology is not generally adopted. It can serve as a precedent or example for other regions where extensive risks are poorly understood but pose significant threat to the population.

Effective disaster risk reduction (DRR) presupposes awareness among key stakeholders on the causal factors that exacerbate disaster risks as well as a feeling of ownership over proposed DRR measures. Yet, the prevailing top-down communication of risk and the expert-centered knowledge have a limited impact in bringing significant positive change. Serious games respond to the need for a community-based DRR approach as they encourage a collective recognition of societal issues and co-learning at the different levels of the DRR governance system. However, there is still a gap in understanding how serious games facilitate co-creation of knowledge. In this article, we introduce DisCoord, a serious game first implemented in the landslide- and flood-prone Rwenzori mountains in South-West Uganda. Designed as a public pedagogy tool, Discoord bridges diverse views and sets of knowledge of DRR stakeholders separated by spatial and socio-cultural domains. Secondly, through a qualitative analysis of the dialogues, narratives and observation notes during the actual game sessions and debriefings, we explored the factors and processes that influence knowledge co-creation. Three different knowledge actors are involved in the co-creation process, namely the game designers, game facilitators and players. These actors have diverse pre-game views, which are expressed through the game rules, arguments, game strategies, and game outcomes, and are confronted within the public space provided by the game. We find that crises experienced during the game, real-life based arguments provided by the players and own interpretations by the players are key factors in the co-creation process. This study leads us to conclude that games like DisCoord are useful as a public pedagogy intervention as they bring different forms of knowledge together in a public space and facilitate co-learning. This paper also contends that countering a top-down approach of risk communication using a public pedagogy approach requires an openness towards the unpredictable, de-centered DRR, and plural co-learning outcomes.

Accurate and complete inventory of natural hazard occurrence and their level of impact is a key first step to risk assessment, but it remains a challenge, especially for high frequency low impact events that rarely makes it to the news media. This challenge is even greater in rural areas of developing countries such as Uganda, where limited IT facilities prevent dissemination of information through social media. Here we report on a citizen-science initiative to monitor small-scale disasters (landslides and floods) occurring in the Rwenzori Mountains. A network of citizen (geo-)observers was established in February 2017 to collect temporally explicit geo-referenced information on eight different hazards and their impact using smartphone technology. Since then, over 500 hazard occurrences have been reported. However, such dataset needs to be assessed for its accuracy and potential biases before being used for scientific analysis. In this study, we evaluate the accuracy and completeness of the geo-observer-based disaster reports. First, systematic errors are reduced by peer reviewing the reports and implementing automatic tests to assess potential errors in detection and biases. Then, we compare the geo-observer-based records with two independent inventories collected through systematic field mapping and satellite imagery mapping, focusing on landslide and flood events for the period between May 2019 and May 2020. Results show over 95% of the geo-observer reports validated in the field were correctly identified and recorded less than 5 days after the occurrence (60% true positives, 1% false positives and 39% false negatives). For the satellite imagery mapping, 29% were true positives, 43% false positives and 28% false negatives. Geo-observers provide near real time disaster information on the location and level of impact, something difficult to achieve with systematic field and satellite imagery mapping. Depending on the topography of the area and the weather conditions, it can take several days to weeks before a cloud-free satellite image of a place can be obtained. The false negatives in the Geo-observer data are due to the tendency to report mainly occurrences along roads and rural foot paths since such occurrences are easily seen and accessed. Isolated small and inaccessible landslides are often not seen or reported to the Geo-observers. While satellite imagery mapping provides an opportunity to record disaster occurrences even in extremely inaccessible places, small landslides are often missed while shallow ones can easily be confused with freshly cleared vegetation for crop planting. Citizen science-based disaster reporting therefore not only provide the spatial occurrence of disasters but also the temporal and weather-related information, necessary for disaster risk analysis.

Effective disaster risk reduction (DRR) presupposes awareness among key stakeholders on the causal factors that exacerbate disaster risks as well as a feeling of ownership over proposed DRR measures. Yet, the prevailing top-down communication of risk and the expert-centered knowledge have a limited impact in bringing significant positive change. Serious games respond to the need for a community-based DRR approach as they encourage a collective recognition of societal issues and co-learning at the different levels of the DRR governance system. However, there is still a gap in understanding how serious games facilitate co-creation of knowledge. In this article, we first introduce a serious game, called DisCoord, as a public pedagogy tool that bridges diverse views and sets of knowledge of DRR stakeholders separated by spatial and socio-cultural domains. Second, through a qualitative method of analysis of the 10 game sessions in Uganda, we examine the factors and processes that influence knowledge co-creation. The game actors – game designers, game facilitators and players – primarily steer and influence the co-creation process. These actors have diverse pre-game views, which are expressed through the game rules, arguments, game strategies, and game outcomes, and are confronted within the public space provided by the game. We find that crises experienced during the game, real-life based arguments provided by the players and own interpretations by the players are key factors in the co-creation process. This study leads us to conclude that games like DisCoord are useful as public pedagogy intervention as they bring different forms of knowledge together in a public space and facilitate co-learning. This paper also contends that countering a top-down approach of risk communication using a public pedagogy approach requires an openness towards the unpredictable, de-centered DRR, and plural co-learning outcomes.

The international agenda for disaster risk reduction, through the Hyogo Framework for Action and the Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction, promotes decentralised platforms as an indispensable strategy to achieve effective and efficient disaster risk management. Based on empirical data from the Rwenzori Mountains region, we question the implications of this type of network governance for disaster risk management. We embed our observations in an analytical framework that combines literature on network governance with insights from politics of disaster, notably scale and blame theories. In this study, we investigate the implications for disaster risk reduction through the analysis of three processes of scale structuration observed in contemporary West Uganda: (i) incomplete decentralisation, (ii) blame dissolution, and (iii) scale jumping. We argue that decentralised platforms in Uganda co-produce unequal risk, as they are used as spatial tactics to centralise power for the ruling party and enable blame dissolution and scale jumping. From our analysis we draw broader conclusions on drivers and implications of the implementation of disaster network governance in countries that are primarily governed hierarchically and that endorse the international frameworks of disaster risk reduction.

Water governance occurs at multiple levels, from the local to the supra-national, which are often highly fragmented. The interconnected nature of water requires interactions among these multiple governance levels. Public participation may foster such interactions. Thus, many water management reforms involved decentralization and public participation worldwide over the last decades. Yet, it is not demonstrated how these reforms may improve water resources sustainability. Their analysis in the literature does not show concretely how interactions among multiple levels materialize and are influenced by participation. As such, the question addressed is how interactions among multiple levels of water governance manifest over time in a participatory intervention. Using a case study in the Rwenzori region in Uganda, this article compares the multi-level interactions before and during a participatory process. The latter has been purposely implemented to bridge gaps between local and provincial levels through a participatory planning process centred on the provincial level. Four types of flows were analyzed: information and knowledge, hydrosocial, financial and human. Our analysis shows that using artefacts like the role-playing game and planning matrix fostered bi-directional information and knowledge flows. Hydrosocial flows did not change in depth but the legitimacy of the two organizations implementing the participatory process was reinforced. Project financial flows were injected through a provincial academic institution, who is not a regular budget recipient. They were therefore superimposed on existing budgeting process. We conclude by providing suggestions for the engineering of participatory processes in order to foster more collaborative and effective multi-level water governance.

Landslides affect millions of people worldwide, but theoretical and empirical studies on the impact of landslides remain scarce, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study proposes and applies a method to estimate the direct impact of landslides on household income and to investigate the presence of specific risk sharing and mitigation strategies towards landslides in a tropical and rural environment. An original cross-sectional household survey is used in combination with geographical data to acquire detailed information on livelihoods and on hazards in the Rwenzori mountains, Uganda. Ordinary least squares regressions and probit estimations with village fixed effects are used to estimate the impact of landslides and the presence of mitigation strategies. Geographical information at household level allows to disentangle the direct impact from the indirect effects of landslides. We show that the income of affected households is substantially reduced during the first years after a landslide has occurred. We find that members of recently affected households participate more in wage-employment or in self-employed activities, presumably to address income losses following a landslide. Yet, we see that these jobs do not provide sufficient revenue to compensate for the loss of income from agriculture. Given that landslides cause localized shocks, finding a significant direct impact in our study indicates that no adequate risk sharing mechanisms are in place in the Rwenzori sub-region. These insights are used to derive policy recommendations for alleviating the impact of landslides in the region. By quantifying the direct impact of landslides on household income in an agricultural context in Africa this study draws the attention towards a problem that has been broadly underestimated so far and provides a sound scientific base for disaster risk reduction in the region. Both the methodology and the findings of this research are applicable to other tropical regions with high landslide densities. publisher: Elsevier articletitle: The direct impact of landslides on household income in tropical regions: A case study from the Rwenzori Mountains in Uganda journaltitle: Science of The Total Environment articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.01.171 content_type: article copyright: Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. ispartof: Science of the Total Environment vol:550 pages:1032-1043 ispartof: location:Netherlands status: published

In the Rwenzori Mountains, at the border between Uganda and the D.R. Congo, landslides frequently occur and cause fatalities and substantial damage to agricultural land and infrastructure. Up until recently, no information on the landslide characteristics, occurrence or spatial distribution was available. The use of archive inventories and field surveys however allowed identifying the key mass wasting processes in this region and their triggering and controlling factors. Here, we present the results of these multi-temporal archive and field inventories. The Rwenzori mountains are diverse in lithology, topography and land use patterns. This diversity in landslide controlling factors is also reflected in the types of landslides that occur in this 3000 km2 large region. The majority of the Rwenzori Mountains consists of steep slopes on gneiss, mica-schists and amphibolite lithologies. A dominance of shallow translational soil slides is observed in gneiss while the amphibolite is found not to be prone to such landslides. This is in sharp contrast to the lowlands, which are characterized by gentle slopes and a rift alluvium lithology. In contrast to what was expected, the largest landslide densities are found in these lowlands where large, deep-seated rotational soil slides with head scarps up to 30 m depth prevail. In both the lowlands and the uplands, slope gradients appears to be the main topographic predictor for the spatial occurrence of landslides. Finally, concerning landslide triggering events, in both the archive inventory and the field surveys, rainfall-triggered landslides are the most common but co-seismic slides were also observed.

While landslides constitute a major risk in Uganda, this geomorphological hazard has been largely neglected by national and local authorities in West Uganda. Nowadays, disaster risk management is emerging in Uganda. Monitoring the on-going efforts is therefore crucial in this region. We identify the actors involved in landslide risk management in West Uganda and examine their roles and interactions by investigating both policy and practice. This paper describes a qualitative multi-policy level approach, based on extensive field work and literature on systems analysis and scalar politics. The results show that in theory, landslide risk management in this region consists of a well-structured National Policy (2010), including the establishment of horizontally structured platforms at different administrative levels and a focus on pre-disaster mitigation activities. In practice, however, the implementation is insufficient, as most platforms at local level remain dysfunctional or only meet after a disaster occurred. The dominant arena for landslide risk management remains at national level, despite the promotion of decentralisation, and the focus remains on post-disaster emergency measures, such as providing relief. At local level, bottom-up landslide risk reduction efforts are made that are disconnected from the national policy, scattered and done haphazardly. Thus, discrepancies exist between policy and practice regarding landslide risk management in West Uganda but efforts are moving gradually towards disaster risk reduction.

Landslides (LS) impacts are acute in Equatorial Africa, which is characterized by mountainous topography, intense rains, deep weathering profiles, high population density and high vulnerability. This study aims to move beyond the recognition of landslide occurrence and investigate effective risk reduction strategies. Based on 5 workshops with local stakeholders, we illustrate the widespread occurrence of LS on 4 representative study areas known for being severely affected by rainfall-triggered LS in Uganda (Mount Elgon, Mount Rwenzori) and Cameroon (Limbe and Bamenda urban regions). The findings highlight the good knowledge of local stakeholders on factors controlling the timing and spatial distribution of these events. Stakeholders identify a wide range of direct, but also far-reaching indirect and intangible cumulative impacts of LS. Finally, the project inventoried and categorized risk reduction strategies currently implemented in the targeted regions, as well as the factors identified by stakeholders as bottlenecks in the implementation of potential alternative strategies. The experience underlines the usefulness of involving stakeholders at an early stage in selecting study areas and defining specific research objectives. En Afrique Équatoriale les glissements de terrain ont des conséquences très lourdes en raison de la topographie montagneuse, des pluies intenses et d'épais profils d'altération, ainsi que d'une densité de population élevée et d'une grande vulnérabilité. Cette étude a pour objet de dépasser la simple identification des occurrences des glissements de terrain et de rechercher des stratégies efficaces de réduction des risques. En nous basant sur 5 workshops organisés avec des acteurs locaux, nous montrons la fréquence générale des glissements de terrain sur 4 zones d'étude sévèrement impactées par les précipitations en Ouganda (Mount Elgon, Mount Rwenzori) et au Cameroun (zones urbaines de Limbe et Bamenda). Il ressort de nos résultats que les acteurs locaux ont une bonne connaissance des facteurs qui déterminent la distribution de ces évènements dans le temps et l'espace. Ils identifient toute une série d'impacts directs mais aussi d'impacts indirects intangibles d'une grande portée.Enfin, le projet a inventorié et catégorisé les stratégies de réduction des risques habituellement mises en œuvre dans les régions touchées, ainsi que les facteurs identifiés par les acteurs comme des obstacles à la mise au point de stratégies alternatives. Cette expérience souligne l'utilité d'engager des acteurs locaux à un stade très précoce de la sélection des zones d'étude et de la définition d'objectifs de recherche spécifiques.