“Climate change and recent severe flooding in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria”

Abstract

This paper considered the phenomenon of climate change in relation to frequent and intensified flood problems in Uyo, the Capital City of Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria.  Empirical evidence on the onset of climate change in Nigeria was presented. Flood problems worldwide were highlighted, together with their impacts in terms of deaths, economic losses and associated human sufferings. To this end, a detailed rainfall analysis was conducted for the study area, Uyo, using statistical distributions commonly deployed to describe climate states, such as the mean, the running  mean, the standard deviation, coefficient of variability, skewness, and kurtosis, as well as, parametric statistics such as Kruskal-Wallis test and ANOVA. Results showed that recent rainfall amounts and patterns in Uyo were out of step with  long-term mean conditions. For instance the 2005-2014 mean rainfall was 22% above the 30-year mean from 1985 to 2014. The rainfall Skewness and Kurtosis showed significant swings in the central tendency and confirmed the establishment of a new mean and a new standard deviation in the 2005-2014 decade. These trends were further confirmed to be statistically significant by Post Hoc Test at the 0.05 level. The implication of these findings is that rainfall is adding more water to surface runoff, leading to incessant, severe flood conditions. Although some effort has been made to reduce the incidence of flooding in Uyo through the provision of drains and storm sewers (pipe-jacking), a lot more needs to be done in terms of provision of infiltration surfaces (green areas) through sustainable urban renewal programme. Climate change mitigation options such as reducing gas flaring, bush burning, and fossil fuel combustion are recommended.

Keywords: Climate Change; Flooding; Pipe-Jacking; Green Areas.