A Review of Flood Risk Analysis in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria has witnessed diverse flood events in the past years and due to the high level of vulnerability and lack of coping capacity of the people, with the fast occurrence of extreme events resulting from climate change, many lives and properties are at risk of its impacts. This paper reviews the recent past and present efforts in assessing the flood impacts in Nigeria. We concentrate this study on the recent works (methods and results) in assessing flood impacts in the country under basic components of flood risk analysis: The hazards mapping and modeling, exposure and vulnerability assessment, with the aim of suggesting possible urgent needs and further development. Based on our review, we conclude that, there is need to explore more effectively the use of state of the art flood models, which integrates all hydrological processes for more accurate prediction and mapping of flood and its associated risks. Also, as one of the steps to plan for adaptation and mitigation of future flood risk and climate change, there is a serious need of detailed research in the development of regional or national flood damage functions for pre-disaster flood damage estimation. The study also suggests further study on the environmental and health impact of flood in the country.