Nigeria: Lagos flood: Beyond panic control, but high-tech engineering solutions

By Yacoob Abiodun

We are at it again. The Lagos megacity is being overrun by flood. Like a routine phenomenon, it happens year in, year out, often with increasing devastation of the milieu coupled with human fatalities and large-scale destruction of property and damage to road infrastructure.

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Lagos has long been prone to frequent flooding, but preventive measure to protect the environment is feeble and unsustainable. The fire brigade approach by successive administrations in Lagos State has been less effective. Indiscipline, official mendacity, corrupt practices, and governmental lethargy are responsible for the failure to minimise flood in Lagos.

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In Amsterdam, The Netherland 60% of the population lives below sea level. Despite this watery environment, engineering innovations have been applied to wage unrelenting war against incessant flood year-round. A few of the mechanisms and High-Tech engineering solutions to contain a high volume of water when flood occurs are “Deltawerken (the Delta Works) – a complex combination of dikes, dams sluices to control storm surge.

They also have a system known as Hagestein Weirs which many city engineers around the world come to Amsterdam to understudy and replicate in their cities or countries to solve flood problems.

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