Nigerian Government urged to harness flooding, others with technology 

The Nigerian Government have been urged to utilise satellite technology and other available technologies to harness natural disasters such as flooding to positive and economic uses.

This was made known by the Executive Director, Centre for Space Science and Technology Education (CSSTE) Dr Ganiyu Agbaje, during an interview with newsmenpp in Abuja on Wednesday.

Agbaje said that technology such as satellite technology which the CSSTE will partner with disaster management agencies on, patterns, timing and volume of flood can be predicted early and preparation made to utilise the water.

“When you know that the flood will last for three months or five months for instance, you can use the water to plant rice, or you can gather it into a reservoir that can be used during the dry season.  

“There are so many things that can be done with this, and if you know that certain places are lacking water, you can channel it to those farms that need those water.

“Like all these ranches that we have been talking about, that river is coming from the north, if you have a ranch there, when the water is coming, you will channel it and store it .

“You can purify the water and it becomes drinking water, so why are we not using the flood water to make life easier?” he queried.

The whole of Netherlands is on a flood plain but they use engineering and other means to ensure that they stay afloat most of the time.“We lose millions of dollars every year to flooding in Africa, forcing ECOWAS to make a policy on disaster risk reduction but more has to be done to ensure that the impact is lower in Nigeria and other countries,” he said.

The training is not to teach the over 300 participants who have benefitted on how to predict but to show them how to use additional satellite data make better predictions and support other methods.

The technology had been on for a while around the world, adding that African leaders in collaboration with the EU initiated the training to help Africa better monitor the environment and mitigate disasters.Agbaje said that with the data, rainfall, rivers and the environment would be better monitored, adding that in the case of Nigeria, more information on the activities of River Niger would be known using the technology.The three-day training was backed by the African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU) under its Global Monitoring for Environment and Security and Africa (GMES & Africa) initiative.

Itwas conducted by the Centre for Space Science and Technology Education (CSSTE).

MTO/Independent