Heavy Rain - The Land on A Hill's Biggest Nightmare

The kinds of rains that have fallen in Ghana and especially Accra should not have dealt the damage that it did.

The only reason why water levels will rise and settle for a while at a place is that there was no passage for the water. If you're not making good drainage systems, you're asking for trouble.

Some advanced parts of the world also see floods but their kind of flood is very different from ours. It takes significantly more water to cause flood there than it would take here.

If you have a piece of land whether for a farm or for construction and especially if it's on a hill, then you need to take drainage seriously.

A hillside with no vegetation or drainage has mud without protection.
During rainy seasons like the one we're in, the heavy rain ours down with so much power that it removes the very top soil in the process.

So what happens to a land on a hill that has no protection against the rain after it's left there for a couple of years. For each year there's a cycle of rainy season and each time, the top soil is washed off. So after about 5 years, you'll have little to no top soil and the land will not be viable for growing anything.

The even worse part is down the hill. As the rain washes the mud on the hill to the bottom of the plot, what you'll get their is thick mud and waterlog areas. What also happens is that because of the slop nature of the hills, the top part will be losing water faster because of gravity and it ends up hardening during the dry season into something like a rock.

That's why if you're not building anything there, you can try pilling some sticks and stones there. The heavier stuff piled there will block those straight paths the water moves through to get out. So when the water reaches those piles, the speed will eventually decrease.

Imagine not knowing all this and you decide you want to plant or grow your vegetation on a hill. You'll be battling against nature your whole life. This is why learning more about something is important and it's necessary to do prior to starting the thing.