By Engr. Christian Okwori
According to Al Jazeera this week, over 600 lives have been lost in Nigeria due to the ongoing flooding. Unfortunately, no state of emergency has been declared neither has there been any presidential address and everyone is busy carrying on like nothing is happening.
My friend in Bayelsa reported that the flood has practically kept them under house arrest and cut off Bayelsa by road as no one can come in or leave the state. This is not acceptable in a civilized world, especially in a country like Nigeria which has some of the finest hydrologists, environmental engineers, urban and regional planners, and all manner of professionals in the built sector.
Based on personal experience and based on ongoing projects I am involved in, there are 4 strategies for to managing flood
- Flood acceptance – if the consequence is bearable and minimal
- Flood avoidance – if the consequence will be too much to bear
- Flood mitigation – if the consequence can be reduced to a bearable level
- Flood optimization – integrating all of the above and taking economic advantage of the flood.
Hence, here are my humble suggestions to mitigating flooding in Nigeria
Construction of strategic dams and canals linking various fadama zones and avoiding populated areas mapping from the Cameroon dams. This will aside from mitigating flood also enable the usage of dammed waters for irrigation, seasonal navigation, and power generation among other possible applications
Proactive avoidance of physical developments along both active and dormant water causes. Government should stop the laid-back approach of waiting for people to build on the wrong land and coming back to demolish or warn them. Physical planning and regional/urban development MDAs and their officials need to be cautioned and monitored to always do the right things
Immediate stoppage to the reclamation of wetlands, swamp fields, and mashes especially for construction works. Swamps and wetlands are the buffers protecting table lands from creeks, lagoons and oceans, and other water bodies
Urban renewal: shanties and slums making up the disarrayed inner-city layouts are responsible for exacerbating flooding problems in Nigeria, especially in highly populated cities like Lagos
Clearing of drainage channels of solids and silts regularly will help mitigate flood
New developments should be based on EIA in principle and not just as a paperwork formality. Hence the ‘No Project Option’ need to be taken seriously where it turns out to be the case
New estates, housing developments, and structures should be sand filled at reasonable heights above sea levels that will prevent such properties from being flooded even if the streets are flooded.
Diplomatic warnings need to be issued to the republic of Cameroon and its officials to stop opening the dams without recourse to the Nigerian government and areas likely to be affected as this is an act of terrorism that could be stepped up against our national security. This could also mean at times of war, the Nigerian military and supply chains could easily be partially overwhelmed by releasing such dam waters especially given that the most vulnerable areas are the nation’s bread baskets.
If all of the above is followed dutifully, I am pretty sure that 70% of flooding problems will be a thing of the past.