The Executive Director, National Water Resources Institute, (NWRI), Professor Emmanuel Adanu, has called on government to focus more on preventing disasters than managing it in order to save human, material and financial resources.
Addressing a stakeholders meeting for development of appropriate infrastructure on Flood Marks organized by NWRI in Kaduna on Tuesday, Adamu said flood is a natural phenomenon that humans must put up with, adding that the attendant disaster and benefit of the phenomenon are needed to be managed effectively for man’s benefit.
Speaking on steps taken to mitigate the disaster in the form of flood marks, Prof. Adanu explained that flood marks are just like mile posts from one town to another telling people how far they have traveled.
“Floods marks therefore helps us identify levels at which a flooded environment will be to have an effect on the people, structures or facilities. So, we are using that as a standard benchmark.
“We are going to have mark posts or symbols or beacons all over the country along flood plains and then mark the levels of flood as in maximum we have had, then we graduate it down, or up from green to yellow and red,” he said.
Also speaking, the Director Planning, Research and Forecasting, National Emergency Management Agency, (NEMA), Mr. Kayode Fagbemi, said, “flood mark is going to serve a record purpose, as data will be gathered to say at a particular year this was the level of flood and then we can have historical data.
“Flood on its own is not a disaster, but a hazard and it is human interactions with floods that lead to disaster. For instance, if I intend to buy a plot of land and I see there is a mark that flood gets to two meters there I won’t buy the land.
“With this good initiative one could easily evacuate by having flood warning and this will lead to less deaths and destruction of property. It might not lead to less flood but less damage and consequences of disasters caused by flood.”
The 2019 season rainfall prediction was released by the Nigeria Meteorological Agency, (NIMET) on January 24, 2019 forecasting normal to below normal rainfall in Nigeria with few places expected to experience above normal annual rainfall.
