Mr
Lasisi: Good morning Tolu
Tolu:
Good morning Mr Lasisi
Tolu: Why is our community
flooded and you can’t do anything? You work with Government I guess.
Mr Lasisi: Yes, but I am an
environmentalist not a flood risk engineer or
a coastal engineer.
Tolu: Sir you just have to
do something about it, you are an environmentalist and environmentalists solve
the problems of the environment.
Now that conversation with
the young man has got me thinking. Has Lagos flooding defied all solutions?. Definitely the answers is No. We've got to find a solution to the constant
flooding, whether flash floods or accumulated flood. Our city cannot continue to be flooded.
There are many coastal cities
like Lagos along the equator that shares similar climatic conditions like ours.
Also, there are cities that are below sea levels and are not constantly
flooded. Cities such as Amsterdam,
Rotterdam, Baku, Jericho, just to
mention a few are below sea level and have been able to cope with flooding sea
level rise. As a fast growing metacity what are we not doing right as people.
Surely, as an
environmentalist and a researcher we have to act fast. The geology of Lagos is good for many options
so also is the will of government to implement actionable and workable proposals.
It is now left for us as citizens to come up with solutions that will help our
city to remain above water.
In the next four weeks, I will
be writing on actionable proposals that can be of help to us as a city to reduce the impact of
flooding. It is not one boxed solution to all cases. Sometimes we will have to
do community by community approach to find the solution.
This is an open challenge
to everyone, we have to come up with
ideas and ways to solve this.
To my friends in VGC who
have called me before. I may have found a
solution to the problem.
Thank you all.
No comments:
Post a Comment