Any story about Nigeria without Lagos is incomplete. Lagos has a significant role in the past and future of the country. it is regarded as the commercial nerve centre of the country. However, the beautiful city of Lagos is not without her own peculiar challenges. The population of Lagos is on the increase, no thanks to the allure of "gold on the street" sold to rural dwellers. This growing population is impacting on the existing infrastructure within the city. In recent times, another challenge is coming to light - flooding. Being a coastal city, Lagos is prone to heavy rainfall. Heavy rainfall coupled with improper planning and waste disposal, flooding is becoming pronounced in different parts of the State. Will the flooding stop any time soon?
Not according to Prof. Abiodun and his colleagues. According to their report "A decrease in annual precipitation is projected over Cape Town, Maputo and Port Said, whilst an increase is projected over Lagos, where the water surplus from the more extreme precipitation events exceeds the deficit from the less wet days" (Abiodun et al, 2017). How was this conclusion reached? The authors used two future climate scenarion (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) to compute moderate extreme events. The moderate extreme events computed include the total number of days for which rainfall is greater than 1mm, the total number of days in a year when the rainfall on a given day is above 20 mm and twelve other indices. This analysis was done for four coastal African cities - Cape Town, Maputo, Port Said and Lagos. The authors found that the number of wet days in a year in Lagos will reduce but the total precipitation will increase. This means we will be having fewer rainfall but those rains will be very heavy. An implication of this is the increase in number of dry days. This will affect agricultural products at planting and harvesting. It also means we are going to have hotter days. Lagos was found to be an exception to most of these results.
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| Projected percentage changes in extreme precipitation indices over the four cities (a Cape Town, b Maputo, c Lagos and d Port Said) in the two future periods (2046–2065 and 2081–2100) under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. The changes are calculated with reference to the past climate (1986–2005) and are averaged over the neighbourhood of the city(Abiodun et al, 2017) |
What can Lagos State do about these results? While it can be argued that not much is going on in terms of agriculture in Lagos, the little agriculture we can lay claim to is under threat. Will the current structural and environmental plan be viable in the future under higher flood? There is no doubt that the Lagos State government has a lot to do in terms of planning. Recent land reclamation activities along the coastal areas should be reconsidered in light of these results.
Reference
Abiodun, B.J., Adegoke, J., Abatan, A.A. et al. Climatic Change (2017) 143: 399. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2001-5
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