Extreme Event | Sector | Likely physical impacts in the various regions as a result of vulnerability |
Floods | Agriculture and food security | Silting or destruction of small dams and pans, especially in ASALs used for irrigation or watering points for livestock |
Losses of crops and stock from heavy rains and floods | ||
Floods leach soils rendering them infertile resulting in poor yield. Floods also cause physical damage to crops thus affecting the final yields | ||
Floods kill livestock and promote outbreak of killer diseases such as pneumonia, rift valley fever and the blue tongue | ||
Floods cause soil nutrient leaching and actual vegetation death due to root suffocation | ||
When livestock is adversely affected, food security is threatened due to loss of the industry’s food contribution in terms of livestock and livestock products | ||
Water, aquatic ecosystems and associated infrastructure | Extensive damage to water supply and sanitation infrastructure, including pipelines and pumping stations | |
dams overtopping due to extreme flooding | ||
Excessive river sedimentation | ||
Coastal erosion, excessive siltation as well as Inundation of coastal wetlands causing major disruption of functions of important aquatic ecosystems including coral reefs; mangroves; seagrass/seaweed Beds; estuaries, deltas and lagoons | ||
Health including sanitation and human settlement | Food shortages from crop losses affects children’s health | |
Increased incidence of water-borne diseases following flooding | ||
Physical injury and death | ||
Increased cases of diarrhea diseases due to inadequate portable water or contamination of water sources | ||
Destruction of public and primary healthcare facilities | ||
Human settlements and infrastructure being destroyed | ||
Long-term effects on mental health and people may experience anxiety or depression for some time after a flood disaster | ||
Energy and relevant infrastructure | Likelihood of flood waters uprooting power poles | |
Likelihood of flood water uprooting trees which in turn fall on power lines | ||
Likelihood of floods disrupting normal production and distribution of essential petroleum products such as cooking gas and other fuels to isolated areas that heavily rely on such commodities for their energy supply as a result of roads being impassable | ||
Floods will lead to increased sedimentation and hence frequent breakdowns of turbines at the power stations, causing frequent power cutting and therefore reduced industrial activity. Such floods are also destructive to both animal and plant life, which translates to a reduction in biomass production (note that over 80% of energy used in Kenya for domestic activities is biomass based) | ||
Terrestrial ecosystem including forestry and Tourism | Destruction of infrastructure used by tourism industry(especially roads) | |
Damage to ecosystems on which tourism depends (e.g. Coral reefs) |