One of Nigeria’s most predominant natural disasters is recurrent flooding, making some states to increasingly experience flooding during the rainy season. One of the main causes of recurring floods around the world is climate change. However, in addition to climate change, Nigeria’s flooding can also be attributed to improper planning and provision of essential infrastructure. Nigeria’s worst flooding in history was experienced in 2012, with losses amounting to about $16.9 billion.
Among the 17 sustainable development goals for attaining human development by 2030 as outlined by the United Nations, more than half of those goals could be threatened directly by flooding. For example, flooding can affect the provision of clean water and sanitation, as well as eradication of poverty and hunger. Accordingly, flooding portends a threat to sustainability given that it could affect health, social life, environment and the economy negatively.
The causes of flooding in Nigeria are mostly anthropogenic and they are generally worsened by improper interactions between human systems and the natural environment. Sometimes many residential areas have poor drainage conduits, depending on natural drainage channels to pass off the surface runoff. As urbanisation increases, it also means that the natural environmental setting is altered to a large degree such that the built environment cannot absorb water, leading to increased runoff.
Another cause of flooding in Nigeria is related to the poor handling and management of waste, especially solid waste. The general attitude of people toward waste disposal and the lack of proper waste disposal services, especially in semi urban and rural areas is a major contributor to flooding. These solid wastes have often blocked major drainage systems even in the most urban centres of the country. In addition, the unregulated municipal expansion due to increased population and migration from rural and semi urban areas leads to incommensurate urban infrastructure and amenities. The agrarian areas are also increasingly transformed to residential areas to address growing housing deficits, without appropriate planning.
