A Review of Flooding and Flood Risk Reduction in Nigeria
The prevalence of flooding within Nigeria which has been generally attributed to climate change and poor urban planning is an issue of critical importance within the context of national development. Over the period 1985 to 2014, flooding in Nigeria has affected more than 11 million lives with a total of 1100 deaths and property damage exceeding US$17 billion. Although more frequent floods are recorded in Niger, Adamawa, Oyo, Kano and Jigawa states possibly due to the influence of rivers Niger, Benue, Ogun and Hadeja, Lagos state seems to have experienced most of the floods in the country. With rapid population growth and urbanization in the country the risk of flooding to human lives and properties assumes critical dimensions. Critically, poor awareness of the hazard is a major impasse towards its management. This creates a significant gap in the knowledge of how to improve on the current efforts towards addressing the challenges of flooding in Nigeria. Since attempts to tackle the hazard appear to be limited, the present study is driven by the need to identify those limitations in the flood management efforts in Nigeria. Possible way-forward are suggested based on a critical review of flooding and its management in Nigeria, allied with globally acknowledged ‘best practices’ in flood risk reduction and lessons learned from other countries’ experiences of flooding. It is argued that more robust and scientific approaches to flood risk reduction such as: flood modelling and assessment of vulnerability to flooding are lacking. Ultimately, this study makes recommendations based on three key issues, one of which is to align the focus of flood risk reduction in Nigeria with the objectives of such a task in more developed countries such as the United States, United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
