Solid Waste Management and Vulnerability to Floods in Gombe Metropolis, Nigeria

Several empirical works in developing countries have shown a relationship between solid waste management and vulnerability of cities to floods. Gombe Metropolis being one of the cities in the developing countries is not an exception. Thus, this research aimed at studying the relationship between solid waste management and vulnerability to floods in Gombe Metropolis. Specifically, it examined the population dynamics and its impact on the amount of solid waste it generates. The research also studied the current solid waste management system with efforts to establish an association between the solid waste management and the recent floods in the metropolis. To achieve these objectives, questionnaire was developed and administered to one hundred and seven sampled households in all the wards of the metropolis. The data collected from the questionnaire survey was analysed using Statistical Parkage for Social Sciences. The result shows that the number of individual in each household have been doubled within the last ten years on average and nearly all these households have no access to refuse bins. In addition, sixty two percent of the households have no designated refuse collection points, as a result close to half of the households disposes refuse into drains, streams and gullies within the metropolis. Thus, poor management of solid waste is probably responsible for the increasing flood vulnerability in urban Gombe. Though, in general terms the research discovered a very weak positive association between solid waste management and floods in Gombe Metropolis.