Overall risks from climate-related impacts are evaluated based on the interaction of climate-related hazards (including hazardous events and trends) with the vulnerability of communities (susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to adapt), and exposure of human and natural systems. Changes in both the climate system and socioeconomic processes -including adaptation and mitigation actions- are drivers of hazards, exposure, and vulnerability (IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, 2014).
This section provides a summary of key natural hazards and their associated socioeconomic impacts in a given country. And it allows quick evaluation of most vulnerable areas through the spatial comparison of natural hazard data with development data, thereby identifying exposed livelihoods and natural systems.
The charts provide overview of the most frequent natural disaster in a given country and understand the impacts of those disasters on human populations.
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Climate change is now recognized to have a significant impact on disaster management efforts and pose a significant threat to the efforts to meet the growing needs of the most vulnerable populations. The demands of disaster risk management are such that concise, clear, and reliable information is crucial. The information presented here offers insight into the frequency, impact and occurrence of natural hazards. Source (PDF)
Understanding natural hazard occurrence as well as historical climate conditions, in relation to development contexts, is critical to understanding a country’s historical vulnerability. This tool allows the visualization of different natural hazards or historical climate conditions with socio-economic and development datasets. Select the Development Context and either a Natural Hazard or Climate Condition and overlay horizontally by sliding the toggle left or right to gain a broader sense of historically vulnerable areas.
Data presented under Historical Climate Conditions are reanalysis products derived from ERA5-Land data. ERA5-Land is a global land-surface dataset at 9 km resolution, consistent with atmospheric data from the ERA5 reanalysis from 1950 onward. Climate reanalyses combine past observations with models to generate consistent time series of multiple climate variables. They provide a comprehensive description of the observed climate as it has evolved during recent decades, on 3D grids at sub-daily intervals.
This data has been collected, aggregated and processed by the Climate Resilience Cluster of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Earth Observation for Sustainable Development (EO4SD) initiative.
- Floods are a recurring natural hazard in Nigeria and have become more frequent throughout the country in the last couple of decades. Agriculture, health, infrastructure, the economy, and trade are all negatively impacted, as evidenced in 2012 when severe floods contributed to reduced economic growth in agriculture and trade.
- Increased flooding due to sea level rise will have negative impacts on agriculture, the economy, coastal infrastructure, human health, coastal ecosystems, and human settlements. Sea levels have been rising along the coast of Nigeria, causing coastal erosion and some villages to be lost (e.g. Erstwhile Village in Delta State). It has been estimated that a 1-meter rise in sea level could cause 75% of the land in the Niger Delta to be lost.
- Droughts negatively impact the socio-economic growth of Nigeria and are projected to become more severe in the future as a result of climate change. Significant drought years occurred in 1973 and 1983 and persistent droughts have the possibility of causing crop failures, loss of livestock, and famines. Additionally, desertification has been occurring in Nigeria, with desert conditions moving southward.
- Adaptation strategies to increase the resilience of coastal communities in Nigeria focus on building sea barriers, reinforcing banks of reservoirs, raising transport routes, strengthening socio-economic infrastructures (e.g. oil vents), afforestation efforts in mangrove forests, and introducing salt-tolerant crops and fish species.
- High priority adaptation strategies to reduce Nigerian’s vulnerability to floods are raising roads and rail routes in coastal areas to prevent damage from floods, improving resilience in urban centers, and early warning systems.
- In order for Nigeria to increase its resilience to these extreme events, adaptation strategies will need to focus on diversifying livelihoods; adopting drought-tolerant and early maturing varieties of crops; efficient weather forecasting; re-vegetating degraded areas; expanding and optimizing irrigation infrastructures; sustainable land management; better urban policies and infrastructures; and increasing and upgrading storage facilities.