Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 9
F
LOOD
R
ISKS
A
NALYSIS IN A
L
ITTORAL
A
FRICAN
C
ITY
:
U
SING
G
EOGRAPHIC
I
NFORMATION
S
YSTEM
Nkeki Felix Ndidi
1
and Ojeh Vincent Nduka
2
1
Department of Geography and Regional Planning,
University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria
2
Department of Geography and Regional Planning,
Delta State University, Abraka, Nigeria
A
BSTRACT
Flood hazard has become the most frequent natural disaster and has
provoked global responsiveness. Due to its devastating nature, many lives
have been lost, natural ecology degraded, disrupted social and economic
activities and destroyed properties worth billions of dollars. Such over-
whelming effect is felt more in urban centers especially those located in
coastal regions. Estimating flood risk was a complex multi-faceted
problem due to the level and amount of knowledge in systematic discipli-
nes such as geography, geomorphology, climatology, hydrology, hydrau-
lic engineering and urban planning that need to be combined.
Presently, this problem has been surmount with the introduction of
geographic information system (GIS) which when properly integrated
with remote sensing technique, has the capability to transform the manner
and way of modeling flood risk and extracting spatial information to
support decision making processes.
