Hand dug well water remains the major source of domestic (drinking) water in the city of Wukari. This study was aimed at the assessment of heavy metal concentration in hand dug well water from four land uses of abattoir (A), waste dump site (B), residential (C) and commercial (D) in Wukari Town, Wukari, Taraba State. There are about 76 hand dug wells in the study area and for the purpose of this study. Yamane (1967) sample size technique was adopted. Based on this, 95% confidence level and an error limit of 5% were adopted. Thus, four (4) For now, it can be concluded that hand dug well water in Wukari Town is fit for domestic use, but that efforts should be made to reduce the magnesium and manganese concentration by having control on the anthropogenic factors that lead to such high concentration levels or else, soon this source of water may become unfit for domestic use. It was recommended that aggressive public awareness and enlightenment on possible impacts of hand dug well water pollution from human activities should be embarked upon by relevant agencies. K. T. Oyatayo et al.2

This study was aimed at monitoring, mapping and characterisation of floodplain encroachment patterns on the River Kaduna floodplain in Kaduna metropolis, Nigeria,as part of the approach to flood hazard evaluation, flood risk assessment and effective flood and floodplain management. A Topomap of 1967 was used to extract the base built-up layer, while Landsat.TM, 1987, Spot.XS, 1995, Landsat.ETM, 2001 and Quickbird, 2006 were used to generate other built-up layers, which were extracted by digitization and converted to polygon shape files and later used for overlay analysis. A Digital Elevation Map (DEM) of the area was used for delineation of floodplain boundary. ArcGIS sorfware 9.0 operational tools was highly robust and flexible for mapping and analysis of urban growth patterns and characterisation of floodplain encroachment by communities. From the results, it was observed that the highest extents and rates of encroachment are recorded by communities in the proximity of the Central Business District (CBD) such as T/Wada, Ung. Rimi, Barnawa, Doka and the industrial layouts of Kakuri and Kudenda. These areas are the centers of highest socio-economic infrastructure which implies greater flood risk and damage potential in the event of flooding. Results also showed that about 52.83% of the urban segment of the River Kaduna total floodplain area of 48.55km², has been encroached by built-up. As a result of this pattern of encroachment, strong institutional framework and investment towards effective floodplain management is recommended

Flooding is now an annual occurring event in Donga Town especially after heavy rainstorm which is further worsened by the nature of the topography of the area. The knowledge of how the public view flooding is considered a crucial aspect in modern flood management as it steers the development of effective and efficient flood mitigation strategies. This study therefore assessed public perception of flooding in Donga town. Two wards were purposively drawn out of ten wards (Gata Aure and Fada ward). The survey design method was employed in this study. Yamane (1967) method of sample size determination was used to arrive at a sample size of 130 for the study. Systematic random sampling was used in the administration of 130 questionnaires to respondents. Non parametric statistics of Spear Man rank correlation and descriptive statistics (percentages, tables, pie and bar charts) were used to analyze the data. The result of the findings showed that 95% of the respondents were male, 88.4% of the respondents were aware that the area was prone to flooding. Also, about 46.2% perceived that rainfall was the major cause of flooding in the study area. Correlation analysis result was insignificant which implied that in Donga town, educational level of respondents did not influence respondent's awareness level of flooding and that people's perception of flooding was influenced by factors other than respondent's literacy level. The conclusion from the study is that rainfall intensity and amount is the main cause of flooding in Donga town and also individual's response to flooding in the study area is poor. This study recommends the need to educate the people living in the flood plain on the dangers of continuous occupation of the area.

The study applied GIS techniques to integrate Digital Elevation Model (DEM), Landuse/Landcover (LULC) and flood frequency analyses to determine extent of flood hazard inundation of Makurdi town along its River Benue reach following extreme discharges and stage levels. Annual maximum stage and discharge data from 1914 to 2015 was analyzed using Gumbel’s distribution to predict flood flow for different return periods (T): 5, 10, 25, 50, 75, and 100. A goodness of fit test was conducted using Chi square statistics, which was insignificant indicating that River Benue at Makurdi flood flow fits the Gumbel distribution. Combining this result with DEM and classified LULC data, the GIS spatial analyst tool was used to estimate the areal extent of landuse that will be inundated per return period. The result shows extent of flood inundation based on current landuse pattern for the respective return periods of predicted extreme stage / discharge likely due to climate change to be as follows: bareland (1.69, 1.74, 1.78, 1.84, 1.83, 1.89 km2); settlement/built-up (5.38, 5.50, 5.63, 5.76, 5.76, 6.02 km2); farmlands (272.27, 283.59, 295.10, 306.43, 306.43,and 317.49 km2); Vegetation (91.56, 95.26, 98.78, 102.45, 102.48, and 105.95 km2); water bodies (0.21,0.21, 0.22,0.22,0.22, and 0.22 km2) and Wetlands (44.14,  45.80, 47.48, 30.36,49.42 and 50.78 km2). This reveals a general increase in the extent of flood inundation at progressive recurrence interval, and predicted rising extreme river stage heights / discharge except for the flood with 50 year recurrence interval. The study recommends that NEMA and Benue State Urban Development Board

There have been considerable reports on flood frequency, vulnerability and risk especially on Makurdi. However, not much has been known about the proportional contribution of the causal factors and distribution among vulnerable areas. This aspect remains fundamental in flood disaster and risk management decisions and actions. It is on this premise that this study applied the spatial multi-criteria evaluation technique (SMCE). The four (4) broad categories of flood causative factors: Climatic (rainfall) , soil (textural distribution of clay and sand content), morphometric (slope, linear and areal) and Land Use / Land Cover (built-up land, bare land, farm land, vegetated land, wetland and water bodies/broad river) were used for the analytic hierarchy process and weighted sum overlay technique. The analysis revealed percentage contributions of the most effective flood causing factors as follows: Rainfall (44.89%), morphometry (34.02%), Landuse / Landcover (12.8%) and soil (6.28%). The weighted sum overlay result shows that low flood vulnerability areas occupy 43.11% (460.782 km 2 ), moderate flood vulnerability areas 31.13% (332.717 km 2 ) and high flood vulnerability 25.75% (275.238 km 2 ). Since this study identified rainfall as the major determinant of flooding it recommends that annual and seasonal rainfall predictions should be enhanced in Makurdi. Also, the area with high flood vulnerability which coincides with built-up area should drive the promotion of flood resilience city structures and enforced by relevant public institutions such as Federal Ministry of Environment, Urban Planning Departments, Works and Housing. Therefore, remediation actions can be applied for the high vulnerability areas while mitigation actions can be focused more on the moderate flood vulnerability areas.