Environmentalist warns on consequences of building on flood plain areas
NAN-AE-2
Building
By Chidinma Agu
Lagos, Feb. 1, 2017 (NAN) A foremost environmentalist and Founder, Fight Against Desert Encroachment (FADE), Dr Newton Jibunoh, has warned on the consequences of building on flood plain areas.
Jibunoh in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Wednesday said, “it is always sad to see people being displaced from their homes every year by flooding because of the areas they built their houses.
“Flood plain areas like around the River Niger, are usually plunged with many disasters once the sea or ocean level rises.
“It is either the houses built there are submerged or carried away that nobody will remember that such houses once existed in the area.
“Yet, when the disaster ends, you still see people going back to those areas and building new permanent structures,” he said.
Jibunoh explained that flood plain areas are generally regarded as disaster waiting to happen and it had been killing people and destroying property worth millions.
“The government can help to reduce such by enlightening people on the consequences and making sure that they desist from building in such areas, “he said.
Jibunoh said that government enforcing environmental laws guiding flood plain areas was another way people would be discouraged from building there.
“We understand that fishermen and those farming in flood plain areas need a place to rest during the day and at night, but they can do with a makeshift structures.
“They should be discouraged to settle there with their families, “he said.
Jibunoh said that discouraging families building on flood plain areas was a challenge the government that value the lives of its citizenry needed to tackle headlong .
He said that those farming on flood plain areas knew already that they were taking risks.
He noted that some of the farmers maximise the benefits such areas offered during the dry season farming and took whatever they saw during rainfall and rise in sea level. (NAN)
ACA/KOLE/JIE
Edited by Remi Koleoso/Julius Enehikhuere