Climate-adaptive planning for Angola’s coastal cities

In the coastal cities of Angola, the intensity and variability of climatic events such as rainstorms and floods have more than doubled over the last 60 years. For much of that period, conflict in the interior provinces was driving people to the relative safety of coastal cities – namely Cabinda, Luanda and the twin cities of Benguela/Lobito – where most settled in marginal and environmentally fragile land at the urban periphery. The growth of these settlements has resulted in the occupation of high risk, low cost land in river basins and swampy coastal locations. Cholera, malaria and other diseases are increasingly serious problems, linked to a lack of safe water and adequate sanitation. Increasing climate variability has compounded those problems, with rainfall tending to come in intense storms, causing flooding. Following floods in 2006, Luanda suffered a cholera epidemic with 35,000 cases reported.