Environmental Laws in Nigeria and Occurrence of Some Geohazards: A Review

Osumgborogwu, Ikenna; Chi-bo, Chen

doi:10.9734/ajee/2017/34045

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…In Belgium, Nigeria and Egypt no national laws related to flood exist. Importantly, these three countries show flood-related policies and strategies across national and local levels, for example, Egypt's National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change and DRM 2011, and Nigeria's National Erosion and Flood Control Policy 2011 and National Policy on Climate Change and Response Strategy 2013 (Osumgborogwu & Chibo, 2017). Belgium, in turn, is an example of a federal government system, where the governance and responsibility for FRM sit within the three distinct regions of Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia, and not with the federal government (Mees et al, 2016(Mees et al, , 2018.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

National laws for enhancing flood resilience in the context of climate change: potential and shortcomings

Mehryar

Surminski

2020

Climate Policy

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Flood risk is increasing across the world due to climate change and socioeconomic development, calling for a shift from traditional protection and post-event activism towards a forward-looking, risk-aware, and more holistic resilience approach. The national legal system of countries can play an important role in creating and encouraging such a shift. In this study, we explore the potentials and shortcomings of national laws in managing flood risk and increasing flood resilience in the context of climate change. We analyze 139 laws from 33 countries collected from the Climate Change Laws of the World and Disaster Law databases and underpin this with case studies to gain insights on the interplay between national laws and resilience processes. We find: (1) a shift in flood laws from focusing on flooding as a natural resource and water resource management issue towards a broader consideration of disaster risk management (DRM) and climate adaptation policy; (2) a significant lack of climate change recognition in laws regulating decisions and actions for future flood risks, especially in DRM; (3) a prevailing focus on response and recovery strategies and a lack of recognition of risk reduction strategies and proactive flood risk governance approaches; and (4) little recognition of natural capital (comparing to physical capital) and its role in increasing flood resilience. Key policy insights. Flood-related laws around the world lack consideration of future risks. Disaster risk management and climate change are often considered as separate issues in national laws, which can lead to gaps in institutional ownership, responsibilities, and allocated budgets.. Flood-related laws are mainly created after major events, most of which are focused on reactive strategies (i.e. response and recovery). Laws can facilitate the shift from post-event response to anticipatory actions by encouraging proactive flood risk management (FRM) activities (i.e. risk reduction).. Nature-based solutions often remain unrecognized in national laws due to the dominant focus on hard engineering measures. FRM should be treated as a holistic concept in laws: ensuring all the necessary human, social, physical, natural and financial systems are in place to support it.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

National laws for enhancing flood resilience in the context of climate change: potential and shortcomings

Mehryar

Surminski

2020

Climate Policy

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“…Compounding the problem is the simple fact that the communities in at risk areas hardly receive monetary incentives likely to entice them into renouncing conflicting land use practices. Given that the government's preoccupation with economic problems amounts to limited allocation of resources for conservation programs, the gaps in environmental education of the public continues to fuel land degradation [43].…”

Section: Ineffective Policy and Poor Conservation Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As part of its mandate, the Ministry has at its disposal, legal tools for achieving environmentally sound management of resources and sustainable development across all major sectors of the economy including land resources management with oversight on the fallouts from erosion. Accordingly, every state of the nation has an Environment Ministry tasked with ensuring safe and livable environment free from the menace of geo-hazards [43].…”

Section: The Guiding Policy Framework For Mitigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing Land Use and Change Detection in Eastern Nigeria Using GIS and Remote Sensing

Merem¹,

Twumasi²,

Wesley³

et al. 2019

ajgis

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The pace and pattern of various forms of land use change and degradation continues at alarming proportion in several areas in Sub-Saharan Africa. Given the emergent risks, recurrent subsidence and erosions rank as permanent features in some areas of the continent like Nigeria. This exacerbates natural constraints on agricultural production and poor soil quality with damage to natural areas. The severity of gullies in all that, drive the destruction of vast areas in Eastern Nigeria due to intense farming and other elements. All these types of degradation cause declines in the productive capacity of land through reduced yields. For policy makers, the problem is difficult to determine precisely due to limited access to geo-spatial assessment as a decision support tool. Accordingly, there is an urgent need for regular use of such devices in assessing the severity of land degradation and change. To fill that void, this study analyzes land degradation issues in Eastern Nigeria with the latest advances in GIS and remote sensing technologies. Emphasis is on the issues, impacts, factors, efforts and remedies. In terms of methodology, the paper adopts a mix scale approach involving descriptive statistics coupled with geo-spatial technologies of GIS and remote sensing. The results from the use of these techniques point to widespread changes involving gains, declines and degradation in the region's landscape over the years. While the size of land types devoted to agriculture, bare soil, forest and urban land surged in the study area, bushland, grassland and areas covered by water declined from 2000 to 2017. The region also experienced greater threats from the exposure to recurrent land degradation as manifested with the occurrence of erosion hazards across various sites. The emergent spatial patterns not only revealed concentration of agricultural land class along the upland northern axis of the region along Ebonyi and Enugu and clusters of forest cover on the lower south part (Imo and Abia). GIS mappings showed the dispersion of erosion hazards in some of the states. With change attributed to a host of factors raging from competing land use made up of mining, agriculture, ineffective policy, poor conservation and environmental and physical elements. The paper suggested the need for education, effective policy, local participation, soil conservation and the design of regional land use information system as remedies.

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