Mapping Of Flood Vulnerable Areas In Lavun Local Government Area, Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

Flood disaster is a common phenomenum in Lavun Local Government area, hence this examines and map flood vulnerable areas in order to attain an efficient and effective flood mitigation plan in Lavun Local Government Area of Niger State. Two FGD were conducted in each of the selected four (4) communities while total number of eleven male (20 to 40 age) and seven of 50 years above were interviewed. Rainfall data for the period of 30 years was downloaded from a website (Era – Interim). Quantitative data like Field measurement, GIS and RS were also used in obtaining the data and descriptive analysis was used to analyse the data. The Digital Elevation Model (DEM) result shows that, communities in lower elevation are located at the eastern and south eastern part which makes them more vulnerable to flood because they are in low elevation and more close to River Gbako. Furthermore, findings from the FGD reveals that the causes of the flooding are found to be, excessive rainfall, river back flow, discharge and over flow of Shiroro Dams. The wok concluded that communities in lower elevation are located at the eastern and south eastern part which makes them more vulnerable to flood and shows that activities like dam construction (spill-water from the major river) and back flow of the river, excessive rainfall, building and farming activities on flood plain in the study area. It was recommended that, the communities that are discovered to be highly vulnerable to flood should be relocated.