Extreme Rainfall Events and its socio-economic impacts: Lagos Mega-city, Nigeria
1 : Department of Geography, University of Lagos, Lagos.
2 : Department of Geography, University of Lagos, Lagos.
* : Corresponding author
Lagos, a city of intellectuals endowed with an inherent ability to accommodate change and live life beyond the risk. At the moment, it is now an endangered region in the waves of changing climate. The paper presents our activities in documenting the impact of annual ritual of flash flood in Lagos. It classifies the rainfalls of 10th July 2011 as extreme by calculating the percentage deviation from average daily rainfalls for the month of July for 35 years (1975-2010). The impact of this extreme climate event on the general livelihood of an average Lagosian was examined. The effect so far determined reveals that about 19 lives were lost to the single storm rainfall, depending on the vulnerability level of individual and corporate organizations location, properties worth between one thousand dollars ($1,000) to four million dollars ($4,000,000) were damage by the extreme storm. The aesthetic values loss and psychological traumas experienced cannot be estimated. The paper highlight the need for understanding the modelling of WAM at the meso and micro scales for effective integration of model results into urban planning activities of the emerging megacities of the West Africa Sub-region. A judicious mix of both structural and non structural strategies selected with the full participation of stake holders in a bottom top approach is prescribed.
| Subject : | : | oral |
| Language of text | : | French |
| Topics | : | GT1: Environmental changes |
| Keywords | : | Extreme Rainfall Events ; urban areas |
| PDF version | : |  PDF version |
