The years of conflict, urban migration, and mining industry have created a more mixed distribution of people in the last decades. [...] The urban annual growth rate has consistently been higher than total growth. These trends are projected to continue until 2050, when the urban population will be 59% and rural 41% of the total, both as a result of enlargements in settlements and in consequence of net rural-urban migration.

The Government of Sierra Leone established the Disaster Management Department in the Office of National Security. As a first step in dealing with the problem of climate change, the Department together with key stakeholders embarked on the development of a national hazard profile, national disaster management policy, national disaster management preparedness and response plan, vulnerability and capacity assessment and contingency plans on health related problems, population movement, floods, water shortage etc,.

Evacuation in the event of an extreme weather event is via three main access roads that include low‐lying and floodable stretches, especially the northern route into Freetown Goderich road. In Sierra Leone,there are other areas where the road bed needs to be elevated at least to 2‐3m above sea level to avoid increasing incidence of periodic flooding in the future.