Analyzing Emerging Environmental Issues in Major Areas: The Case of Lagos in South West Nigeria

Abstract

With the many glowing promises painted about Lagos <b>S</b>tate over the past decades, several environmental challenges do exist in the area. This is evident with the pace of unprecedented urban development expansion and incursions into areas deemed ecologically fragile through the conversion of wetlands to human settlements in low-lying zones prone to the threats of sea level rise hazards and intense flooding. Additionally, the metropolitan area has also seen intense environmental degradation emanating from the pressures of unprecedented influx of people into the area. As the various land use activities and land reclamation projects in the state intensify to meet rising demands for settlements, the carrying capacity of the ecosystem remains threatened. The declining quality of the ecosystem as manifested with recurrent waste generation, limited access to fresh water supply, poor drainage and power outage, translates into extra burden for a place saddled already by fatalities from the outbreak of epidemics of water contamination and building collapse, emission of atmospheric toxics, the displacement of citizens and damages from climatic variability. With the problems attributed to a host of socio-economic and physical factors, very little exists in the literature to capture these trends spatially using a mixscale approach. This study will fill that void in research by assessing emerging environmental issues in the Lagos area. Using a mix scale approach of descriptive statistics and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to analyze the trends, the results showed a mix of gains and declines in the land use parameters with major increases in areas devoted to urban development from 1976-2008 and 1976-2015, followed by losses in agricultural land and wetlands from 1976-2015. The issues remain compounded by the surge in population and water supply demands and instances of deficits from 1963-2020. While the GIS mapping revealed the gradual dispersion of ecosystem degradation indicators spread across the state, there exists clusters of areas vulnerable to environmental hazards across Lagos. To mitigate these risks, the paper offered several recommendations ranging from the need for effective policy to green planning education for city managers and developers and risk assessment.