8 FACTORS THAT LEAD TO FREQUENT FLOODING IN KENYA

Most of the land is low lying which causes the rain water of spread over wide area. For example the lowlands in the old stages of rivers Nyando, Nzoia, Tana, Kuja and Sondu Miriu are prone to frequent flooding.

The adjacent highlands receive torrential rainfall which releases large volumes of water resulting to rivers overflowing their banks.
Silt has filled the river beds making them shallow thus spilling their water over banks
The rivers in the flood prone areas are at their old stage, thus they have wide flood plains which allows water to spread over large areas.
Most areas have black cotton soil which is non- porous and when soaks up allow water to flow and spread on the surface.
The high amount of rain water discharged into lakes like Victoria makes their levels to rise thus flooding the adjacent lowlands. For example in 1962, following the heavy rains that were experienced, the low lying areas of Victoria was flooded.
A periodic rise in sea level along the Indian Ocean sometimes causes intrusion of sea water and flooding in some low-lying coastal plains. The Lamu area was in 1962 affected by the heavy discharge by the River Tana into the Ocean.