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IUGG XXIV General Assembly July 2-13, 2007 Perugia, Italy
(S) - IASPEI - International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's
Interior
JSS003 Oral Presentation 1849
Remote sensing/GIS application for early warning systems of natural
hazard: case study of Victoria Island, Lagos Nigeria.
Mr. Olumuyiwa Sonuga
PHYSICS UNIVERSITY IASPEI
The rate of environmental changes at the Victoria Island coast of Lagos State, Nigeria is a major
problem and the environment is under the threat of loss of lives, properties and land became vulnerable
to landslide, soil erosion and land use such as residential, industrial buildings and utilities has repeatedly
devastated by coastal storms and flooding thereby resulting in environmental hazards. Already, an
occurrence of 0.2meters of sea level rise resulted to a loss of 3,100 square kilometer of landmass to
flooding. Studies have shown that population growth, migration, urbanization, human and natural
activities at the costal areas are the major factors influencing the occurrence of the hazards. As a result
of population growth in the country, the rate at which people migrate to Lagos State is high resulting
into high rate of urbanization which has led to construction of buildings whereby obstructing the flow of
water through the drainage channels to drain excess water has cost massive loss of land, bulk age of
sewage. Remote Sensing and GIS technologies have been employed in this study to asses the extent of
coastal land loss and damages in Victoria Island of Lagos. Satellite images for different years between
1990 and 2003 of the study area were compared and results shows that natural processes have
destroyed vegetation and land cover areas.
Keywords: coastal storms, flooding, hazards