Flood and Ahoada West Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume IV, Issue VI, June 2020 | ISSN 2454–6186

Flood and Ahoada West Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria

Ekine, Data Irene & Talbot, Osaki
Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Abstract: – The paper examined flood and Ahoada West Local Government Area of Rivers State. The study was informed by the damages done by flood on agricultural activities as well as environmental degradation which in turn affects the socioeconomic well-being of the people. The objectives of the study were to; examine the causes of flood in the study area; and assess the effect of flood on the socio-economic well-being of the people in the study area. To achieve the objectives, the study utilized library science method and collected information from secondary source. The paper identified that flood could be caused by natural factor such as heavy rain fall and human factors such as deforestation. The identified effect of flooding on in the study area are that; flood destroy farms land, food and cash crops, Flood causes spread of infestations on soil and water, degradation of agriculture land. Also, flood affect health through spread of water borne disease and negatively affects the education of the people. The way forward to these menace of flood amongst others include; construction of flood ways, construction of dams, reservoirs or retention ponds to hold extra water during times of flooding, Planting vegetation to retain extra water, building of rivers and coastal defenses.

Key Words: Deforestation, Ecosystem, Farmland, Flood, Flood warning.

I. INTRODUCTION

Flooding can be of natural or man-made. It is a problem that needs to be given a proper attention, because it can ravage a whole city just like the case of Pakistan, India, Bangledesh, Srelanka, Thailand and even Indonesia which particularly affected their economy. This flooding is capable of evoking a high rate of migration that people flee for safety for their lives and as a matter of fact during this period every economic activities will be put on hold. World Flood Disaster Report in 2014 posited that one of the environmental unfriendly event is flood that its magnitude is very verse that it account for about 44% of death casualties while storm accounts for about 41%. The World-Wide Flood Damages caused to households livelihood, agriculture, infrastructure and public utilities amount to billions of U.S Dollars each year, in addition to loss of human and cattle life (International Federation and Red Cross and Red Crescent Society.
According to Awosika and Folurounsho (2006), by the year 2100 up to 15000km2 of land within the Nigerian coastal areas will be given up to flood as a result of one metre of high sea water level either through excess of rainfall or high level of erosion within the region.

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