Socio-economic characteristics of the community that determine ability to uptake precautionary measures to mitigate flood disaster in Kano Plains, Kisumu County, Kenya

Geoenvironmental Disasters

Table 1 Precautionary Measures undertaken by respondents

No	Question item	1. Yes 2. No
No	Question item	Action taken, If ‘Yes,’ score = 1 and If ‘No’ score = 0
1.	Move family to another location
2.	Call evacuation centres
3.	Call the police
4.	Safeguard house
5.	Remove household items
6.	Alert the neighbour
7.	Put domestic animals to safety
8.	Put valuables to safety
9.	Keeping belongings at the high places
10.	Make trenches in front of the house
11.	Store food grains
12.	Make houses with wooden logs
13.	Make small dams at the entrance of the house
14.	Plant trees at the river banks

Source: Field work (2014)
Fourteen (14) actions relating to the precautionary measures were used to calculate the household score whereby, if the correct action was taken, the score was =1, otherwise, any wrong action was given = 0. The higher the score, the higher the uptake of precautionary measures, and vice versa