Assessing the impact of floods on infrastructure in Kasese District

Abstract

Floods cause infrastructural damage on global scale especially in developing countries. The study’s main objective was to assess the impact of floods on infrastructure in Kasese district from 2000 to 2020. This study assessed the impact of floods on infrastructure in Kasese district and was guided by the following specific objectives; to determine trends of extreme rainfall in Kasese from 2000 to 2020, and to determine infrastructure prone to flooding. The study found out that floods have greatly damaged infrastructures such as roads, health centers and schools which are close to rivers like Nyamwamba and Mubuku. The rivers burst their banks during extreme rainfall events leading to an overflow and therefore affecting infrastructures near the rivers. The study considered one rainfall extreme R20 and it’s trend was determined using Mann Kendal test. The highest number of annual extremes was in 2020 which influenced the flood events that took place during that year. Seasonally, the highest extreme events were in SON and the flood events were more in SON than MAM. The test implied that an increase in extreme rainfall leads to an increase in floods. Also, through GIS software, a map showing infrastructures prone to floods was developed. Results show that there was an increasing trend for the annual rainfall extremes for R20 from 2000 to 2020. The seasonal extreme rainfall trends were also increasing for both MAM and SON from 2000 to 2020. Infrastructures such as roads, schools and health facilities that cross river Nyamwamba, river Mubuku and river Nyamusagani were greatly affected by floods. This was due to the bursting of the river banks which was caused by increasing rainfall extremes.