Spatial flood damage assessment mapping in Abeokuta
Ayoola Akingbogun
The major ecological disasters in Nigeria, which have serious adverse economic consequences on the people, are drought, desertification, flood and erosion.
The one that is most striking and which immediately affects various townships in Southwestern Nigeria is flood.
Flooding in urban centers is a very common and complex problem in several countries of the world today. Rivers passing through major towns of these urban centers are seen as contributing factors to these recurring menaces in our society.
Cities and urban residents are directly affected by many of the impacts of climate change, which includes; increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, heat waves, flooding from sea-level rise, water shortages and other effect.
Prevention of flood has always been a much easier and cheaper task than undertaking curative measures of eroded areas.
The urban areas where the soil is used for other purposes other than farming, proper channeling of runoff in such a way that it will not cause any damages is recommended.
To correct some of the wrongs of the past in terms of illegal constructions in built-up areas, dumping of refuse on waterways, damage exacerbated by rubbish and debris clogging drains in the city, lack of enforcement of town planning laws, and the commitment of people to their own environment.
Considering these conditions, imagery collected via UAV (Unmanned aerial vehicle) proved to be the perfect solution on flood damage assessment; the high resolution imagery
captured allowed accurate assessment of the areas impacted by the peak flooding as debris and saturated ground were easy to observe.
This information will give engineering firms the information needed to come up with optimal drainage channel design that will withstand the amount of water that moves through the water ways during the events.
The project aims to understand the need for UAVs with the context of extent of damage, building on multiple channels (Satellite imagery, personnel on the ground, emergency responses, etc).
The captured information will be hugely beneficial to support emergency operations, longer term strategic planning, for instance civil services, flood response community, energy providers or insurers and can be used in aftermath and for planning future scenarios.
Event: Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty 2019
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