FISH FARMERS’ PERCEIVED ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS ON DAM OPERATION AND COPING STRATEGIES USED IN IKERE GEORGE DAM OF ISEYIN, OYO STATE

The study examined the fish farmers‟ perceived environmental effects of dam operation and coping strategies among fish farmers in Ikere George dam, Iseyin Oyo state. Multi stage sampling technique was used to select 102 respondents in the study area. Data were collected through the use of interview schedule and were analysed using descriptive statistics such as percentage and frequency, while chi-square and PPMC were used to analyse hypotheses at p < 0.05. The result revealed that majority (54%) of the respondents below 40 years, with males predominantly higher than females. Also, 71.6% were married and 58.8% had educational attainment below secondary school. Challenges identified were disruption of movement of aquatic animals (137), blockage of migrations of aquatic species (135) and problem of overcrowding in the community (129) were prominent perceived effects of dam operation. The result further showed that migration (99) and planting of trees (146) were the most commonly used coping strategies. Chi-square showed that there was significant relationship between socio-economic characteristics of the respondents and perceived effects of dam operation except religion which was not significant (p>0.05). PPMC analysis revealed that there was significant relationship between coping strategies used (r=0.687, p=0.000). It is therefore recommended that proper training and adequate facilities should be given to fish farmers to ensure sustainability of the dam.


INTRODUCTION
Dams have made important contributions to human development, and the benefits derived from them have been considerable (World Commission on Dams, 2000). With the rising global population and desire to increase quality of life, dams are prominently staged to produce hydropower, irrigation, and drinking water supplies, recreation, navigation, and many other resources to the growing planet. Further, the uncertainty of the future climate regime may mean that dams will play an increasingly important role in water resources. For example, it was predicted that drought affected areas will likely increase and flood risks will be augmented in response to increase frequency of heavy precipitation (IPPC, 2007), the two effects may be ameliorated by dam construction.
At the same time, dams are increasingly slated for removal, reflecting a growing concern over their adverse ecological, social and economic impacts (Pejchar and Warner, 2001). Aging structures, which can pose a risk to public safety, are increasingly removal projects (Heinz center, 2002). Dam removal is also emerging as a promising option for restoring continuums and recounting habitats for migrating fish species including anadromus salmon, which are federally listed as threatened or endangered in the United States (Gregory et al., 2002). However, there is a great deal of uncertainty about the consequences of dam removal (Aspen Institute, 2002;Hart et al., 2002), particularly the unknowns related to the extent, magnitude, and timing of physical and ecological outcomes (Heinz center, 2001;Hart et al., 2002 Dam, 2003), often play a key role in water management. The purposes of dam usually including provision of water for irrigation, drinking and domestic water supply to cities, improving navigation, generating hydro-electric power and flood control. Although dams have been built in the world since time immemorial, dam construction was earlier considered not being possible, though needed, because of lack of adequate design knowledge, construction equipments, materials like cements and concrete and technology of construction. Also, economic conditions and institutional capacity existing in countries that needed large dams, and did not enable them to meet up. The Ikere George Dam is a major earth fill dam in Iseyin Local Government of Oyo state in the south west of Nigeria on the Ogun River. Reservoir capacity is 690 million mᶟ. The dam was initiated by the military regime of General Olusegun Obasanjo and started in 1983 by the administration of Sheu Shagari. The dam was planned to generate 3750MW of electricity, to supply water to local communities and to Lagos and to irrigate 12,000 hectares of land. This dam was abandoned by subsequent military governments. A report for the UN in 2004 said that no irrigation had taken place so far, but efforts were being made to implement one of the five planned irrigation projects. The project was based on the sprinkler system which is difficult to manage and requires the training of farmers. The contribution of large hydraulic infrastructure, particularly dams, to development remains controversial. The controversy stems from the fact that, too often in the past, the construction of dams has brought fewer benefits than envisaged and has resulted in significant social and environmental cost (World Commission on Dam (WCD, 2000). Historically, Dam projects have often failed to pay sufficient attention to environmental impacts and these (invariably poor) people adversely affected by the construction and operation of the dam and associated water management system. Those who had to be resettled and those whose livelihoods are affected by changes in river flow regimes have tended to pay the price of dam construction. Even where the negative impacts were associated "a prior" often those making decisions, but were rarely impacted personally derived "sacricifices" to be accepted in light of the benefits that would subsequently accrue (Beekman, 2002). The general objective of this study is to examine fish farmers" perceived environmental effects of Dam operation and coping strategies used in Ikere Dam Oyo state. The specific objectives are: to describe socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents; to determine perceived environmental effects of Dam operation in the study area and to examine coping strategies used by the respondents in the study area

METHODOLOGY
The study was carried out in Ikere Iseyin local Government Area of Oyo state. Iseyin is city located in the Oyo state Nigerian state of Oyo. It is approximately 100 kilometers North of Ibadan. The city is estimated to have a population of 236, 000 (NPC, 2006). The primary industry of the area is cotton based textiles. Iseyin city is the third largest city in Oyo state. The Ikere Gorge dam is located in the city. It was said to be the second largest dam when it was discovered alongside Kanji dam during Obasanjo regime (Military). Target population of this study was the fish farmers in Ikere, Iseyin Local Government Area of Oyo State. The sampling was carried out by visiting identified villages adjacent to Ikere dam in Iseyin Local Government Area of Oyo State. The questionnaire was targeted at the neighbouring villages to the dam. The questionnaires were administered to the fish farmers in four neighbouring villages, Speed way village, Bendel village, Agatu and Irawote village. Also, 50% of the respondents was selected in each village i.e. Speed way village (34), Bendel village (26), Agatu village (23) and Irawote village (38) which gave a total number of one hundred and twenty one (121) respondents out of which102 questionnaires were retrieved.   The results in Table 2 indicate the perceived effects of the respondents according to the weighted score. The perceived effects were based on three categories; ecological, social and health. The result showed that the disruption of the movement of aquatic animals (137), blocking of the migration of aquatic animals (135) and flooding resulted from the dam (104) were ranked as prominent effects in descending order, while seasonal timing of water yield (67), creation of warming environment (59) and change in water composition (4) were the least perceived effects. Also, result of perceived effects based on social variations revealed that problem of overcrowding in the community (129) and loss of houses (116) were identified as prominent effects of dam operation. Meanwhile, displacement by dam (0) had no effects as perceived by the respondents. The result on perceived health effects indicated that, malaria transmission (79). This is in line with findings of Babagana et al (2015) which stated that malaria is a major health problem associated with construction of dam.   Table 3 revealed the coping strategies used by the respondents in the study area. Planting of trees around the house (146) and migration (99) were commonly used as their coping strategies. The implication is that the people should be encouraged to use more of the coping strategies that are environmentally friendly and also, those that can improve their standard of living.  (Table 5) showed that there was significant relationship between coping strategies adopted by fish farmers and their perceived environmental effects of dam operation. The implication is that as they perceived environmental effect of dam operation, various coping strategies were put to use in order to reduce the social, economic and health effects on the respondents.

CONCLUSION
These studies revealed that majority of the respondents are males (89%), in their active age (less than 50 years), Christians (50%), Muslim (50%) and few primary and secondary educations with 59% having no formal education. The perceive environmental effects of dam operations were high in the aspect of disruption of aquatic animal movement (137), block the migration of aquatic animals (135), problem of overcrowding in community (129), loss of houses (116) and flood caused by dam (104) while minimal effects included displaced by dam (0), change in water composition (4), loss of cultural resources (42) and creating warming potential to the environment (59) according to the respondents. Based on the research and findings of this study, it could be concluded that the dam operation has no much adverse effects on the respondents.

RECOMMENDATION
Based on the findings of the study, the following are recommended; I.
Government should make use of the dam for generating electricity for the country, II.
The dam should be used for irrigation system for crop farmers, so as to increase the production of farm produce, III.
The dam should also serve as a source of water supply for residents in the nearby state, IV.
There should be proper training and enough facilities for the fish farmers to enable them increase fish production, V.
Since Ikere Dam is the second largest dam in Nigeria, it should be developed to make it environmental friendly for tourism.