Status of watersheds in southeast Nigeria

Abstract

The study assessed the status of watersheds in southeast, Nigeria. Participant observation, key informant interview and interview of heads of households were used for data collection. A total sample size of 412 respondents was involved in the study. The results of the study revealed a general decrease in various features in the watersheds. For instance, 99.5% of the respondents were of the opinion that forest trees were decreasing in the watersheds. About 96% of the respondents perceived that the population of animals was decreasing while only 67.1% of the respondents perceived the fishes were decreasing. The study found out that watersheds were low to moderately covered with forests at present but were moderately to heavily covered in the last 10 years. The study also revealed that the present status of the watersheds was threatened by unrestricted access to watershed resources by watershed dwellers and other anthropogenic activities such as collection of fuel wood (98.5%), animal hunting (95.4%), farming activities (87.6%) etc. The study again found that watersheds were close to both farms and residential homes. The study concluded that the closeness of watersheds to farm and residential houses created easy access for excessive exploitation of watershed resources. Key words: Status, watersheds, activities, resources.