Conference Agenda

Nigeria experienced severe flooding during the rainy season of 2012 which cost $17 billion USD in macro-economic terms. This paper examines the local impacts of the flood on livelihoods, which can be severe but are often overlooked in aggregate statistics. Combining panel household survey data before and after the flood with satellite imagery, we provide evidence on the exposure, vulnerability, and ability to respond of households to better understand flood risk at the local level in a sub-Saharan African context. This paper employs multiple modalities of measuring exposure to isolate the causal impact of the flood and uncover local spillovers and interactions with market factors. On average, we find affected farmers lost around 20% of crop production and 50% of value. Additionally, impacts depend on the interaction between the individual and area-level measures of flood exposure. While farmers who live in a flooded area and directly experience the flood lose half their crop value, those in flooded areas but not directly affected experience increases in crop value by around 30%, which is related to food price increases. we also find that households living outside of historically flooded zones experience more severe impacts. In terms of household responses, we do not find evidence of consumption or livestock changes for the full sample, but poor affected households do experience drops in consumption and livestock value. The findings of this paper provide a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the local impacts of floods in sub-Saharan Africa and can help inform disaster risk management strategies in an era of increasing risk due to climate change.