The role of communities in building urban flood resilience in Matola, Mozambique

This paper explores the actions, measures, or strategies the residents of Matola have developed to cope with urban flooding and build community resilience. The study is based on 18 semi-structured interviews, three focus group discussions with 24 residents, two semi-structured interviews with municipal officials from the urban planning sector in Matola, who were present during the 2000 floods, and field observations.

The findings reveal that community mitigation actions during the 2000 flood in Matola ranged from reinforcing the material structure of houses and installing water barriers with walls of sandbags, to rescuing and accommodating family and community members in collaboration with municipal rescue teams.