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The Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) on Thursday alerted Nigerians that 380 Local Government Areas in 35 states would experience flooding this year.
NIHSA said flooding will be high in about 78 local government areas but would not be as severe as what the country experienced in 2012.
Commenting on the agency’s findings as captured in the 2018 Annual Flood Outlook, which was unveiled by the Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, in Abuja, the Acting Director-General, NIHSA, Olayinka Ogunwale, stated that the government had been issuing warnings to residents in flood-prone areas to relocate from such locations.
Flood mapping, flood vulnerability studies and flood sensitisation and awareness campaigns have commenced, according to Adamu who spoke before unveiling the 2018 AFO.
In Oyo state where a deadly flooding incident claimed more than 100 lives in Ibadan in 2011, the Ibadan Urban Flood Management Project (IUFMP), a world bank assisted project, is not relenting in efforts to educate the public against waste disposal behaviousrs that block water channels and cause flooding.
The project too is carrying out construction and rehabilation works on bridges and culverts in flood prone areas in the city.
In other states of the federation, measures are also being put in place by the federal government. The construction of the Kashimbilla Dam, which was designed to contain any eventual break of Lake Nyos, the establishment of reservoirs, artificial lakes and buffers, barriers, irrigation facilities and other structural controls, is one.
According to Adamu, the Ministry of Water Resources was also working with upstream countries in West Africa for the management of transboundary rivers Niger and Benue.
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