UK Experiences ‘Weirdest’ Weather

The UK has just experienced its “weirdest” weather on record, scientists have confirmed.

The driest spring for over a century gave way to the wettest recorded April to June in a dramatic turnaround never documented before.

The scientists said there was no evidence of a link to manmade climate change.

But they say we must now plan for periodic swings of drought conditions and flooding.

The warning came from the Environment Agency, Met Office and Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) at a joint briefing in London.

Terry Marsh from the CEH said there was no close modern precedent for the extraordinary switch in river flows. The nearest comparison was 1903 but this year was, he said, truly remarkable.

What was also remarkable – and also fortunate – was that more people did not suffer from flooding. Indeed, one major message of the briefing was that society has been steadily increasing its resilience to floods.

Paul Mustow, head of flood management at the Environment Agency, told BBC News that 4,500 properties were flooded this year. “But if you look back to 2007 when over 55,000 properties were flooded we were relatively lucky – if lucky is the right word – for the impacts we saw this summer,” he said.

“The rainfall patterns affected different areas – and also there were periods of respite between the rain which lessened the impact.”

Fast moving

He said 53,000 properties would have been flooded this year without flood defences. In total, he said, 190,000 properties had received flood protection in recent years.

Mr Mustow claimed that flood defences repaid their investment by a factor of 8-1 but admitted that continuing to invest would be a “challenge”, after government cuts to planned projects.

But he said that new streams of joint funding from local authorities and private developers had allowed 60 schemes to happen that otherwise would not have gone ahead.

He said: “We have to get our heads round the possibility now that we’re going to have to move very quickly from drought to flood – with river levels very high and very low over a short period of time.

“We used to say we had a traditional flood season in winter – now often it’s in summer. This is an integrated problem – there’s no one thing that going to solve it. The situation is changing all the time.”

But scientists present from the Met Office and CEH said not much could be read into the weird weather. Terry Marsh from CEH said: “Rainfall charts show no compelling long-term trend – the annual precipitation table shows lots of variability.”

Sarah Jackson from the Met Office confirmed that they did not discern any pattern that suggested manmade climate change was at play in UK rainfall – although if temperatures rise as projected in future, that would lead to warmer air being able to carry more moisture to fall as rain.

She said that this year’s conditions were partly caused by a move to a negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation which would be likely to lead to more frequent cold drier winters – like the 1960s – and also wetter summers for 10-20 years.

“Longer term we will see a trend to drier summers but superimposed on that we will always see natural variability,” she said.

Whatever happens with the weather, the Environment Agency expects that more and more people will be protected from floods and droughts thanks to water sharing between farmers, water transfer between water companies, and better management of leaks and demand.

But Mr Mustow admitted that much more needed to be done to ensure that farmers didn’t increase flood risk with land drainage schemes and that developers and builders ensured that new developments allowed water to drain into the soil rather than flushing into the sewers.

updatednews.ca

Nigeria: Flood - Danger Looms in Lagos

Dr. Akintola Omigbodun is an expert in flood management. In this interview, he says the floods ravaging many states in Nigeria are avoidable. Omigbodun, who fielded questions from Vanguard editors during a visit to the media house, last week, also deplores the Ministry of Water Resources' handling of the crisis and warns that there are grave dangers ahead for Lagos and Ogun states should the water in Oyan Dam not be properly managed.

You are an expert on environmental issues, particularly flooding. What got the flooding story in Nigeria started and was it avoidable?

There is a dam across the River Benue in Cameroon called Lagdo Dam. This dam is about 40meters high. Its storage capacity is about half of what is found in Kainji Lake Dam. And at full flow, if equipment was installed in it, it could possibly generate 700 megawatts of electricity. But the equipment is limited and is only generating about 20 megawatts.

They are also supposed to have an irrigation scheme in that dam. The result is that the dam is storing a huge amount of water and is not being used for any purpose. In the event of so much rainfall like what we have now, the people around the dam would become terrified that it might be overtopped. So the authorities release additional water from the dam.

What we get now is a lot more than what we would get. If there was no dam, the water will continue to flow day in day out. But when you put a dam, you are controlling the flow of water; when you now suddenly release the water because you are afraid your dam will overtop, then it will result to releasing much water. The Lagdo Dam has been flooding every year, just that this year is exceptional. Communities in Cameroon are also flooded. There is a town called Garua; every year, that place is flooded. But in order to save Nigeria, the Cameroonian government should lower their operational level, otherwise, every year, most Nigerian communities will continue to be flooded.

Can we know more about this operational level that you want the Cameroonian authorities to lower?

What really happened was that they opened the gate of their dam. The actual water released from that dam from 1992 to 2002 showed that they opened a number of gates at higher percentages. Floods are associated with rainfall, water courses, streams, rivers, dams and reservoirs where water behind dams are stored. Rainfall is natural while dams and their reservoirs are hand made and are therefore subject to human control. Dam owners and operators are expected to exercise control over the water behind their dams such that in years of heavy rainfall and for singular rainfall events, water passing through the dams does not damage infrastructure or create floods. Earthquakes are natural events and, when they occur in certain regions, there is considerable damage to buildings and other social infrastructure. However, in some areas such as Tokyo in Japan, Los Angeles and San Francisco in the United States, buildings are designed to withstand earthquakes. Damage from natural occurrences can be limited through appropriate human action. For example, the Netherlands has over two-thirds of its economy and half its population below sea level. The Netherlands has about 350km of coastline on the North Sea and major rivers, the Rhine, the Meuse and the Scheldt passing through on their way to the North Sea. The Netherlands has an active coastal and river flood management programme to keep the country flood-proof and maintain its prosperity.

Our experience in Nigeria suggests that dam operators should prepare for heavy rainfall within the next 20 years and for singular rainfall events leading to exceptional floods within the next 35years.

Is there a nexus between the Dam in Cameroon, and the River Benue and the flooding of the Oyan Dam?

There is no physical connection. What we have is operational connection. They (Cameroon) are storing a lot of water in the lake and they are not doing much with it. And when the water is much, they release it and the released water causes flooding.

If they release it in small quantity, it would not have effect, but when they release the water in large quantity, it results to flooding. The Osun River is not in any way connected to the Ogun River or the Niger. That tells you that there is no physical connection. I am hoping that government will live up to expectations. I have personally involved the Ministry of Environment and I must say that I am disappointed with their level of involvement in the crisis. They are just being arrogant.

The Minister of Water Resources has not lived up to expectation and I have met with the Director of Water Resources and I could not get him to do anything. I have also written to the Attorney General of the Federation on the Oyan Dam, so that they can do something about it. We must understand that the dams are designed to have spillways and the spillways guide the release of water. The people are suffering as a result of the flooding and government has to rise to the challenges posed by the flood.

We have River Ogun which starts in Oyo North. And there is a dam in Iseyin. That dam is about 47meters high. There is also a tributary of the Ogun River which also has a dam.

At the moment, the Okere Dam is not gated. There is no gate and water flows over. The dam is supposed to provide irrigation and also generate power. What is important is that the dam is supposed to provide water for Iseyin and environs. Following the non-utilisation of the dam for various purposes, there is huge storage of water. All the things that caused the flooding in Lagos and Ogun are under the control of Ogun River Basin Authority. They should manage the dams in such a way that we do not have flood in the areas of their mandate. We are about to be flooded again like what happened in 2010 and 2011.

I have had experience of the floods along the River Ogun in Ogun State and Lagos State in 2007, 2010 and 2011. The flood path is over 27km long and is up to 4km wide in places. The flood level in 2010 was 0.5m higher than the level of 2007. The River Ogun system has two major dams, the Okere Gorge Dam on the River Ogun at Okere Village 28km north east of Iseyin in Oyo State and the Oyan Dam located about 20km northwest of Abeokuta on the River Oyan, a tributary of the River Ogun.

The Okere Gorge Dam is ungated while the Oyan Dam is gated. The Federal Ministry of Water Resources has been asked to direct that the freeboard in the reservoir behind Oyan Dam should be increased by 4meters as an interim measure pending appropriate studies and a construction programme along the River Ogun from Oyan Dam to Lagos flood plains. Put simply, the floods now taking place yearly at Isheri North, the Lagos wetlands communities and parts of Ogun State and the River Oyan Dam were not built on the River Oyan respectively, floods will occur in the Lagos flood plains within the intervals of 10years and 25years.

With the construction of both dams, floods should no longer occur in the Lagos flood plains if both dams are being operated in accordance with their designs. In the exceptional situation, floods may occur once in 50 years.

For the months of August, September, October for years 1992 to 2002, it was only in August 1993 that there was water release. Presently, exceptional release of water takes place yearly in August, September and October. This was observed in 2007, 20010 and 2011. A greater part of the area covered by flood water in 2007 qualified to be included in the disaster area as opposed to the flood plains of the River Ogun. For example, a newspaper published on Friday, November 4, 2011 that the Itowolo Community Primary School Ikorodu started experiencing flood in 2007. The report indicated that the community was founded over 200 years ago and the community never experienced flood until 2007. Further, when the school was established 30years previously, there was no sign that the school would be affected by water.

Why does flood incidence wreaks so much havoc in the face of the existence of River Basin Authorities? Does it mean that the River Basins are no longer working?

The law establishing River Basin Development Authorities all over Nigeria, which is the River Basins Development Authorities, RBDAs, Act Chapter R9 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, required RBDAs to control floods in their areas of operations. Under section 4(1) of this Act, part of the functions of the RBDAs is to undertake comprehensive development of both surface and underground water resources for multi-purpose use with particular emphasis on the provision of irrigation infrastructure and the control of floods and erosion and for watershed management. The river basin is also established to construct, operate and maintain dams, dykes, wells, boreholes, irrigation and drainage systems, and other works necessary for the achievement of the authority's functions and handover to be cultivated under irrigation scheme to the farmers.

However, they have not been performing their functions well. Even though the Ogun River Basin Authority is responsible for what we are experiencing here in Lagos, we are not taking them to court because of my not pleasant experiences in Nigeria's judicial system. The truth is that the flood in Lagos and some parts of Ogun State is entirely avoidable.

It is regrettable that the river basins are not working. For example, when I met the General Manager of Sokoto River Basin Authority, he told me that he only had three qualified staff to work with. Why should the government continue to award new contracts to build new dams, when they have not properly managed the ones they have?

Some have attributed this flooding disaster to climate change. Do you in anyway see climate change as a factor?

We should not be talking of climate change and sea level rise as the cause of the flooding because they are measurable. What the New York City panel on climate change said was that the figures of rainfall analysis from 1970 to 2000 indicated that rainfall and snow will only be ten percent different from 1970 to 2000. The rainfall in 1991 for Abeokuta and Iseyin in 1990 was higher than what we have today. People who are doing research on climate change have come up that there are variations in the rate of rainfall in West Africa. That implies that there are years of low rainfall and years of high rainfall change have variables that are measurable. What is needed to be done in the case of Oyan Dam is to lower the operational level by 4 meters.

What can be done proactively to forestall further damages by flood?

The best thing is for the government to perform its functions. I don't think the government is deaf to newspaper publications, even if they are deaf to letters, because I have written in the past and present on how to avoid the present damages that the flood is unleashing all over the country. What we are saying is that they should take correct measures so that we don't experience this kind of disaster again, because the chances of occurring again are real. The water we are seeing in the Niger Delta is River Niger and Benue water, because there is exceptional rainfall in Kainji and Lagdo Dams.

They were forced to release water. In River Benue, for instance, they wait for the water to be so much high before they release it. Government should realise that they are losing economically to the flooding. It affects our GDP and well-being.

My message is that the losses we are encountering as a result of the flood is avoidable. Definitely the flood would unleash food crisis on the nation, because farmers would lose their crops to the flood. We experienced a similar thing in Sokoto in 2010 when the Goronyo Dam wreaked havoc. The same thing will happen as a result of this year's disaster, especially for those that planted by the river side.

BY CHARLES KUMOLU@allafrica.com

Nigeria, Ravaged by Flood

In the face of the ongoing flooding tragedy in many parts of the country, Sulaimon Olanrewaju provides an insight into the tragedy and the efforts made to contain it.

IT was a foretold disaster which could have been mitigated had the warning been heeded and immediate remedial steps taken. But because the prediction was ignored and the suggested precautionary steps discountenanced, the foretold monstrous flooding came and left in its trail death, destruction and depression. At the last count, according to the Red Cross, at least 148 people have been killed by floods in different parts of the country, over 64,000 have been rendered homeless while millions have been plunged deeper into poverty.

On Saturday August 4, 2012, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET), in a press statement signed by its Public Relations Officer, Eleazar Obende, alerted the nation to the impeding “above normal” rainfall which might result in devastating flooding incidents in 12 states of the federation.

NIMET said that it had observed a “wetter-than-normal soil surface moisture and groundwater conditions in some parts of the country over the past 12 months”, adding that the effect of this would be “prospects of the occurrence of above-normal rainfall which may lead to surface run-off. The flooding incidents that may accompany high rainfall events in and around Lagos, Ogun, Delta, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Gombe, Kano, Katsina and Jigawa states will leave in its trail devastation and destruction reminiscent of similar incidents recorded in some parts of the country some months ago.”

The agency, therefore, appealed to the states to clear all water channels to reduce the effect of the predicted flooding.
     
NIMET also informed the nation that River Niger would overflow its bank, adding that this posed a serious threat to those living close to the river’s plain. The agency warned of the risk of unprecedented flooding of the River Niger plains due to water from the Kainji and Jebba hydro dams. As a follow up on the prediction of NIMET, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) issued an immediate evacuation order to residents along the plains of the River Niger. It also impressed it on state governments to move communities along the plains of the river to higher grounds.

Reactions to the prediction

According to Mallam Yushau Shuaib, Head Public relations, NEMA, his agency, after the prediction by NIMET intimated state governments with the forecast and its implications to the people. However, despite being told of the looming danger, many state governments were either too confused to act immediately on the matter or chose to look away from the impending problem until they were confronted with it. Many of them even failed to inform their citizens of the imminent danger. So, they failed to take preventative steps and are forced to embark on emergency measures.

Even the residents, those who got to know about the prediction, rather than act on the information they had, opted to continue with their lives as if what they were told did not matter. Some even resorted to fasting and praying to ward off the flooding.

“Some were offering sacrifices to the rivers, they believed that their sacrifices would stop the rivers from overflowing,” said Shuaib.

The effect of these was that in many states, both the government and the people were caught napping. Hence, the devastation was massive and crippling.

According to Dr Ebenezer Alade, Coordinator, Association for Better Environment (ABE), the federal and state governments should have immediately swung into action on getting to know about the prediction of the agencies.

“One of our major problems in this country is our failure to leverage on science and technology to combat environmental challenges. Everyone knows that all over the world, the climate is changing. So, it is foolhardy to expect that the weather this year will follow the pattern of last year.

The climate keeps changing and the responsibility of the government and the people is to prepare for these changes, especially when, with the help of modern technology, we are able to forecast looming problems. Immediately the prediction was made, the government should have swung into action to free the drainage and the water channels to allow for free flow of water. All the rivers should have been dredged to reduce the possibility of flooding. Those living in river plains should have been moved to higher grounds. If all these had been done, the flooding would have happened but the devastation would have been minimal,” he said.

The ABE coordinator added that the governments should take a cue from advanced countries which were deploying technology to minimise the destructive tendencies of climate change on their people.

“Science and technologies are a means of improving our lives and it is high time we began to make use of these. If the government would spend a fortune to set up and fund agencies to monitor the climate and to advise it on this, why would the same government fail to take the advice of these agencies? So, we need to have a change of disposition to reports by specialised bodies so that we can get the best out of science and technology,” Alade added.

Shuaib agreed with Alade that climate change was mainly responsible for the excessive flooding.

He said the flooding in some parts of the country such as Lagos and Ibadan was caused by excess rain occasioned by climate change.

“Climate change is primarily responsible for the flooding,” Shuaib said. “If not why should a place like Jigawa which is very close to Republic of Niger, an arid land be experiencing flooding?”

He added that the heavy rains caused River Niger to overflow right from its roots which resulted in a spill that caused extensive damage in different parts of the country.

Shuaib continued, “With River Niger overflowing, some dams also overflowed and if not for the steps taken by the authorities, the result would have been more devastating. With the dams filled, it would be dangerous to leave them like that, so the authorities came up with a systematic way of discharging the water because they cannot afford to let the dams break. Water from both Shiroro and Kainji dams had to be discharged and that was partly responsible for the flooding in Kogi State. We knew this was going to happen. Hence, our call to people to vacate the river plains but many people chose to ignore the call.”

He added that the same thing happened in Adamawa State where the opening of a Cameroonian dam caused flooding which resulted in the death of a number of people.     

“We had to agree to the gradual release of water from the dam because if we have to wait for the dam to collapse, given its speed of 120km per hour, nobody can say what the extent of the damage would be. We only insisted that the Cameroonian authorities should inform us before releasing water from the lake,” Shuaib said.  

Effects of flooding

With the ‘business as usual’ posture of the government and the people, the floods came with not much in place to counter their ferocious onslaught. From Lagos to Calabar, Lokoja to Sokoto, the rains descended with seeming bottled up anger followed by devastating flooding.

Last Thursday, Lagos experienced over eight hours of rain which almost submerged areas such as Okota, Isolo, Jakande Estate, Ijora, Lekki, Victoria Island and some parts of Ikeja. The long hours of heavy flooding did not only shut many residents of the state in, it also shut many out as it resulted in long traffic snarl since many roads such as the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway were almost completely cut off by the flood. 

However, although the waters swept away some vehicles and other valuables, the flooding did not record any loss of life but that was not the experience in June when excessive downpour caused the bridge linking Lagos and Ogun states at Ayobo, in Ayobo/Ipaja Local Council Development Area to submerge with six adults and a child reportedly carried away while attempting to cross from Ogun to Lagos State. The effect of flooding in Kano has been worse as no fewer than 19 persons were confirmed, many others injured and more than more than 15, 000 people displaced as a result of flooding in the state between August and September.

In Zamfara State more than 50 persons lost their lives in various flood and windstorm disasters in the state this year alone, while a minimum of 50 people also died in Jos flooding. That has been the pattern across the country with no state spared of the debilitating consequences of the flooding. The number of people that have been displaced this year alone is a cause for concern.

Impending food shortage

Apart from destroying dwelling and religious places, flooding has also destroyed a sizeable portion of farmlands in the country so much that the Federal Government had to raise the alarm about the possibility of food shortage.

While addressing State House correspondents at the end of a Federal Executive Council meeting recently, Minister of Environment, Hajia Hadiza Mailafia, revealed that over 5,000 farmlands had been destroyed by the ravaging floods across the country.

According to her, “the consequences of the floods are that there are huge losses of farmlands, there are likely threats to food security, we are likely going to have challenges that have to do with the health of the people in some areas. The flooding we are experiencing in the country do not in any way fall into what you can term man made. This is a natural phenomenon that cuts across the globe. With the technology in places like the United States, they still had the flooding there, in China and even our neighbour Niger with an arid land.

“For anyone to think that government has not done well or that there was something that we needed to do that we have not done is a little bit awesome because there is a limit to which you can fight nature. When you have in a country where well over 5,000 farmlands washed away, then there is cause for attention. It is of national interest. So, all what we are saying is that it is a national emergency. It calls for sober reflection.”

With farmlands destroyed and farmers displaced, food supply challenge has never been scarier.

Health hazard

With flooding usually comes water-borne diseases and the Red Cross has warned of the possibility of an outbreak of cholera. Throwing light on the possibility of the outbreak of cholera, Dr Austin Abel said the unhygienic attitude of many Nigerians coupled with the flooding would put them at the risk of cholera.

Abel, Medical Director of Sunshine Infirmary, explained that “the country is being flooded and the probability is that the source of water consumed by many of our compatriots would be polluted and this would definitely result in cholera and other water-borne diseases.”

He added that the effect of the pollution would have been minimal if the people were ordinarily hygienic “but you and I know that many of our people, especially in the rural areas, have little respect for hygiene and this is why there is likely going to be an outbreak of cholera unless the government moves in to arrest the trend.”

He thereafter called on the government to move in and save the rural poor and those displaced by the floods and in camps from the scourge of cholera by providing them with hygienic environment which would help them to ward off cholera.

“If we do not manage the matter very well, we are likely going to have a situation in which there will be more deaths from the after effect of flooding than from flooding itself,” Abel said.

Collapse of infrastructure

A huge chunk of the nation’s infrastructure is affected by the floods. Currently, the Lokoja-Abuja highway has collapsed. Many communities have had their electricity supply cut off as a result of floods which washed away electricity poles and cables. A number of masts belonging to telecommunication organisations have also been destroyed. Many school buildings, bridges and roads have also been washed away by the flood.

State governments have been crying out that the extent of the devastation in their state is beyond what they can cope with and have been calling for the intervention of the Federal Government as well as philanthropists.

Poverty

Hundreds of thousands of Nigerians have been displaced consequent on the flooding. The effect of this is that many of them will not be able to earn any decent income as they are majorly camped in facilities provided by the government far away from their places of abode. It means the displacement precipitated by the flooding will worsen the poverty situation in the country. With over 90 per cent of the nation’s population said to be currently living on less than two dollars a day.

It also means that the poverty reduction programme of the government will suffer a setback as resources will have to be diverted to fixing destroyed infrastructure rather than for empowering the citizens.

Commenting on this, Alade said “There is a link between the environment and poverty. There is no doubt that those who have been displaced by the flood cannot earn any income and they now have to depend on charity. But that is not the end of the story. What happens to their children’s education? It also means that their education would be stunted for as long as they remain on camp. For me, the only consolation will be if the government learns from this experience and works out a means of countering a repeat.”

By Sulaimon Olanrewaju@tribune.com.ng

Water, Water Everywhere!

Coming in to land at Yola airport, I was simply struck by the sheer magnitude of devastation to the surrounding communities from the quadruple threat of a more than average heavy and persistent rainfall compounded by the release of water from Kiri and Lagdo dam in Cameroon, and then River Benue overflowing its banks.  

I lost count of the number of houses that only had protruding roofs. The devastation was heart wrenching. The impact on the affected lives is unquantifiable.

Our communities are on the path of environmental annihilation. This scene has been repeated from Imo State where roads have simply been eroded cutting off the governor who could not get to his village to assess damage, to Edo state with at least 20 communities affected and approximately ten thousand people made homeless, to the closure of Abuja –Lokoja road due to river Niger overflowing its banks and submerging  bordering communities and huge tracts of farmland, to Cross River with devastation across 49 villages  displacing over 12,000 citizens and destroying valuable farmland, and in Taraba with over 13,000 displaced persons in 30 communities.

The stories are all the same. All are affected in one way or the other. This has been the worst in over three decades especially as our two main rivers appear not to be fortified to withstand heavy rains. The President we are told has asked the Ministers of Environment and Works to shift base and move to the affected communities. Let us hope it is not too late and their presence makes a difference and most importantly, they have the resources to tackle the problems.

Fundamentally though, Nigeria has had a higher than average rainfall this year and it appears we are yet again not ready and certainly caught napping.  The Nigeria Meteorological Agency had gone on an advocacy warning of the impending rains and flooding but it appears their message did not get through to the population even as it was done in local languages.

Is it us as a people who are not prepared or the various state governments that are not doing their jobs? In the case of the North-eastern states, the Nigeria Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) came out to defend its position under the Nigeria-Cameroon Bilateral Commission, and felt its job had been done prior to the release of excess water thereby passing the buck to the state governments. The state governments did not take action. Some cynics will say state governments are hoping the flooding will occur so they get extra funding from the centre. I pray this is not the case. 

The citizenry on its part is perhaps not aware of the inherent dangers of building houses on low lying plains due to a lack of understanding, and see the land as their friend. Driving between Yola and Jalingo for instance, there are numerous NEMA signs indicating flood plains and areas peoples should avoid, but it still did not prevent people dying from flooding.

It is important that citizens also take personal responsibility for their inability to act. We saw how poverty prevented many citizens in New Orleans in 2005 from fleeing from Hurricane Katrina despite it being a category five and a one week warning. The point is, where will they go and who will protect their property?

Like any country, Nigeria has its fair share of government agencies that are directly responsible for these problems. Funds of course will always be a problem, but an urgent advocacy drive would be useful.

So what can we all do to avoid future devastation? Our monthly environmental exercise needs a rethink. It is lacklustre and no one really knows its purpose. The FCT has gone as far as eliminating it totally. I am an advocate of community involvement from the local level. Our local leaders must know their environs and understand what they are prone to and hopefully educate their followers on that.

Simple things like decongesting drainages, picking litter, planting trees, recycling rubbish, demarcating land properly and clearly identifying danger zones, not building on reclaimed land or on Fadama areas, allowing rivers to follow their natural tributaries will help.

It is a collective effort and not that of government alone. We the people must take responsibility in our immediate communities to ensure that we come together to avert future crises. We cannot continue to lament when the obvious is staring us in the face. If we respect nature and live in harmony with it, we will live with water everywhere but not in our front rooms.

 By ZAINAB JAJI@leadership.ng

Pakistan floods: Tens of Thousands Made Homeless

Tens of thousands of people have been made homeless by heavy monsoon flooding in the Pakistani provinces of Balochistan and Sindh, officials say.

About 120,000 homes have been destroyed and tens of thousands of tents are now being distributed.

Officials in Balochistan say that about 80% of the population is now affected.

However, correspondents say the floods are not on the same scale as those two years ago which devastated large parts of the country.

In Balochistan, the government has set up medical posts to treat gastric problems, malaria and other illnesses among 500,000 people who have been made homeless.

One meal a day

A BBC reporter who has been travelling through the province and in Sindh says that many people are now living in the open without shelter on whatever patch of dry ground they can find.

Officials say that food, tents and medicine are in short supply.

Balochistan is Pakistan's largest province in size but ranks lowest in terms of infrastructure and services.

The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan in Karachi says that it is also a staging ground for militant activities - the kidnapping threat makes it almost impossible for aid agencies to operate effectively.

Our correspondent says that food supplies are so low in Balochistan that many people are surviving on one meal a day.

The army has been called in to help with the rescue operation even though it wants to pull out of a province used as a sanctuary by Taliban militants from fighting in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Balochistan is also blighted by sectarian violence and is at the centre of an insurgency waged by ethnic Baloch separatists demanding more autonomy and a greater share of its natural resources.

The army says that aid supply is the responsibility of the government, but correspondents say that so far it is nowhere to be seen.

bbc.co.uk

Six months since floods ravaged Pakistan's Sindh and Balochistan provinces, millions of victims are still waiting for urgent aid. Who failed them -- the government, donor community or media?

India Floods Displace Nearly 1.5 Million People

Floods have forced nearly 1.5 million people to flee their homes in northeastern India where authorities have declared a health alert, officials said on Monday.

"Eighteen of 27 districts of Assam have been hit by floods with 1.4 million displaced and 11 people drowned in separated incidents in the past week," the Disaster Management agency said in a statement.

The floods, caused by relentless rains, marked the second round of massive flooding in two months to hit India's impoverished northeast and come towards the end of India's June-to-September monsoon season.

Nearly 130 people died and six million were displaced by floods in Assam state in July.

Rescue officials said in the latest floods, at least 2,200 villages had been swamped by overflowing waters from the rain-swollen Brahmaputra River.

Himanta Biswa Sarmah, the health minister of Assam state, told AFP that a "maximum health alert" to avert outbreaks of diarrhea or diseases such as typhoid had been declared in the devastated zone.

The annual monsoon provides vital irrigation for India's farmers but also claims many casualties from flooding and landslides.

Officials said flooding victims had been evacuated to temporary shelters on higher ground.

"We've dispatched doctors and paramedics to ensure there is no outbreak of disease," Sarmah said in Guwahati, Assam's largest city.

Victims and an opposition party staged protests in flood-hit areas against what they said were shortages of emergency supplies in the Congress-ruled state.

"The government has failed to provide adequate relief supplies including food and medicines," said Sarbananda Sonowal, a local leader of India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. "In many parts of the state people are even living without food," he added.

Rehab India Foundation, a voluntary group said heavy rains disrupted its plans to supply food and other essential items to flood-hit people.

Almost the entire 420 square kilometres (162 square miles) of Kaziranga National Park was also flooded, the Press Trust of India reported.

The wildlife park is home to the world's single largest population of one-horned rhinos. A 2012 census in Kaziranga counted 2,290 of the rhinos, out of a global population of 3,300.

The species declined to near extinction in the early 1990s and is listed as "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Kaziranga has fought a sustained battle against rhino poachers, who kill the animals for their horns that fetch huge prices in some Asian countries where they are deemed to be an aphrodisiac.

In neighbouring Pakistan, flash floods triggered by record rains have affected around 700,000 people and destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres of crops in the south-west of the country, officials said.

At least 51 people have died across the impoverished province of Baluchistan and Prime Minister Raja Parvez Ashraf on Sunday declared three districts as calamity-hit areas.

afp.com/en

International Flash Flood Project in Europe

NOAA, NASA and the University of Connecticut are representing the United States in theHydrological Cycle in the Mediterranean Experiment (HyMeX), the largest weather field research project in European history.   

HyMex is a 10-year international effort to better understand, quantify and model the hydrologic cycle in support of improved forecasts and warnings of flash floods in the Mediterranean region.

The project targets central Italy, southern France, the Balearic Islands, Corsica and northern Italy — all areas particularly susceptible to devastating flash flood events. Improved understanding of the land, atmosphere and ocean interactions that contribute to flash flooding in this part of the world will advance the state of the science that will ultimately be represented in forecast models with application in the United States.

NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) researchers will operate a mobile radar, NOAA - XPol (NOXP), in southeast France from Sept. 10 to Nov. 10. This is the first of several special observation periods during the HyMeX 10-year timeframe. Additionally, NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service is sponsoring scientists from New Mexico Tech to operate and evaluate a Lightning Mapping Array during HyMeX to support product development and validation for the future Geostationary Lightning Mapper on NOAA’s GOES-R satellite, which is scheduled to launch in late 2015.

The radar will provide high-resolution data and low altitude scans to help determine the size of the raindrops, the intensity of rainfall, and rainfall rates to help predict flash flooding conditions in the Cévennes Vivarais region of France. 

During autumn, onshore moisture from the Mediterranean Sea encounters the 5,000-feet high Cévennes Mountains in southeast France making numerous towns and villages particularly subject to severe flash flood events.

“Data collected in the air, at sea and on land will shed light on how catastrophic flash-flooding events begin, which may help local officials better prepare for and respond to these types of emergencies,” said Jonathan Gourley, Ph.D., an NSSL research hydrologist.

Other sensors include three instrumented research aircraft, three research ships, buoys, ocean sensors, additional mobile precipitation radars, cloud radars and microradars, hundreds of rain gauges, ten disdrometers (to measure size and speed of individual raindrops), a dozen lidars, sonar, instrumented balloons, wind profilers, and a lightning mapping array.

NSSL’s participation in HyMeX is sponsored by MétéoFrance, and operations are coordinated with the Cévennes-Vivarais Mediterranean Hydro-Meteorological Observatory, The University of Grenoble, NASA, University of Connecticut and Cemagraf.

NOAA

West African Floods Bring Back the Same Old Problems

Amid the commotion in the flooded Saga district of Niger's capital Niamey, on the left bank of the Niger river, Issa Ali and his two wives are scrambling about in the water. With their four children already safe from danger, they try to fish out any clothes or other articles that may still be usable in whatever home they will live in next.

Collapsed walls and houses, household utensils floating in the river, whole villages wiped out, roads cut off - almost all West African countries have suffered the anguish, loss of life and wreckage of homes caused by recurrent floods over the past decade.

Every year, governments in the region launch national and sometimes international appeals for solidarity to aid flood victims, through assistance schemes such as Senegal's Orsec rescue plan, which was activated last month, or through fund-raising telethons.

However, despite these shows of support, which raise hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of dollars depending on the country concerned, as if my magic the same scenes are played over again the following year. The recurring flood cycle leads some observers to blame private interests that stand to benefit as the phenomenon keeps repeating itself.

Floods in Niger in July and August this year led to the deaths of at least 52 people and affected more than 400,000, according to the government. Provisional figures for Senegal in late August indicated at least 16 deaths in since the start of this year's rainy season.

"In Senegal corruption is one of the reasons for this state of affairs because works that are carried out have in many cases not gone through a bidding process," says Mouhamadou Mbodj, coordinator of Forum Civil, the Senegalese chapter of Transparency International.

This is no less true in Niger, according to political observer Ibrahim Abdoulaye, who says many dams built during the presidency of Mamadou Tandja - overthrown in a military coup in 2010 - showed a lack of preparation in their construction.

"That is all the more so since many of them have given way under the pressure of heavy rainfall in the last few weeks," he says.

Mali, Burkina Faso and Benin have also been affected in differing degrees by recent floods.

The big question that many want answered is why governments wait for disaster to strike before taking action. No country in this region of Africa has yet produced an effective flood prevention plan.

One hypothesis is a lack of accountability for the resources generated when countries respond to these crises, a problem that also applies to many non-government organisations. The result is that ordinary people like Issa Ali and his family have little knowledge of how much money is received on their behalf, and even less about how it is used.

BY MAHAMANE MOURTALA MOUSSA@allafrica.com

What The Drought Of 2012 Tells Us About Industrial Agriculture

I grew up on farms in Iowa and Wisconsin, surrounded by a family of farmers and agricultural workers, all of whom grew corn. I have never heard any farmer say, “Wow, we got the perfect amount of rain this year.” It’s never perfect, and farming is a tough business. There have been droughts before, and it looks like there will certainly be more droughts in the future. However, the summer of 2012 has been historic in several ways:

● July was the all-time warmest month on record in the United States.
● Corn yields are predicted to be the lowest in 17 years.
● Corn futures touched a record high of $8.49 a bushel on August 10.
● July saw a 17-cent jump in the national average gasoline price--the biggest increase for that month on record.
● The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported the largest monthly jump in its cereal price index, up 38 points (17%) from June and only 14 points below its all-time high registered in April 2008.

So what’s the difference between 2012 and other years of drought?

For one, this summer has seen record-breaking heat and dryness, especially in America’s breadbasket. The drought came at a particularly bad moment in the corn growing cycle, resulting in a crop that is likely to be diminished by around 23% this year. This decrease in supply of course increases demand, increasing the price of corn, which gets passed along to industries that use corn (mainly ethanol producers and livestock and dairy farmers). Along with retailers, affected farmers and manufacturers absorb as much of the price as possible before they must pass the cost along to consumers in an already struggling economy. (See projected prices in the graphic.)

A second major difference is the amount of corn we grow for ethanol these days. There is a huge debate over the current ethanol mandate that I aim (rather optimistically) to steer clear of in this post. But when a drought knocks out 23% of the harvest, that deficit has to come from somewhere. The current federal renewable-fuel standards require 13.2 billion gallons of corn ethanol to be blended with gasoline this year. That takes 4.7 billion bushels of corn. In a year where 10.7 billion bushels is an optimistic estimate for the total national corn crop, that means nearly 44% of this year’s corn harvest Read more + Additional infographics.

Thousands Being Moved from China's Three Gorges - AGAIN

China relocated 1.3 million people during the 17 years it took to complete the Three Gorges dam. Even after finishing the $59 billion project last month, the threat of landslides along the dam's banks will force tens of thousands to move again.

It's a reminder of the social and environmental challenges that have dogged the world's largest hydroelectric project. While there has been little protest among residents who will be relocated a second time, the environmental fallout over other big investments in China has become a hot-button issue ahead of a leadership transition this year.

In some cases, protests have forced the scrapping of multi-billion dollar projects. The most recent was on July 28, when Chinese officials cancelled an industrial waste pipeline after anti-pollution demonstrators occupied a government office in the eastern city of Qidong, destroying computers and overturning cars.

"If the government says you have to move, you move," said Shuai Linxiang, a 57-year-old woman among 20,000 people to be relocated from Huangtupo, where they were resettled in 1998. "We can't oppose them."

The Three Gorges dam was completed in July when its final turbine joined the national grid and the facility reached its full capacity of 22.5 gigawatts, more than enough to power Pakistan or Switzerland.

As the dam was being built on the Yangtze River, in central Hubei province, authorities moved 1.3 million people who lived in what became its 1,045 sq km (405 sq mile) reservoir, an area greater in size than Singapore.

Reuters was recently given a rare tour of the 181-metre (600-ft) tall dam and reservoir. In a sign of how sensitive the fresh relocations are, plainclothes security men and people who identified themselves as officials from the "news department" followed Reuters reporters around the area for three days, hindering interviews by intimidating locals with their presence.

Since word of the new resettlement has filtered out, Shuai and her neighbors have become known in China as "Three Gorges' immigrants, once again".

They were moved to Huangtupo in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the reservoir began to consume their original town.

Besides 20,000 people in Huangtupo, another 100,000 may be moved in the next three to five years because of geological risks, Liu Yuan, an official with the Ministry of Land and Resources in Beijing said in April, according to state-run China National Radio.

The number of "geological hazards" had risen 70 percent since water levels in the reservoir reached a maximum of 175 meters (574 ft), he said, without elaborating, although he was believed to be referring to landslides. Liu could not be reached for comment.

Landslides in Huangtupo had been exacerbated by changes in water levels in the reservoir, said Fan Xiao, a geologist for a government-linked institute in southwestern Sichuan province, who studied conditions there in 2006.

Dam officials lower water levels by as much as 30 meters during the summer in anticipation of floods, and raise them in winter. The change softens the slopes along its banks, Fan said.

"It's like a person who's standing in place, if you push and pull him, he'll definitely not be as stable as before," he said.

For hundreds of thousands who live on the banks, landslides can wipe out homes. The government has not given recent statistics of deaths from landslides but at least 48 people were killed in 2007 across the area, according to state media.

Three Gorges officials defend the facility and say it has brought development to an otherwise poor region.

Wang Hai, deputy head of the operations department at the complex, said the dam did not increase the risk of landslides, which he said were not unusual along reservoir banks.

"The stability of the reservoir banks is not worse than before," he told Reuters in an interview.

Besides forced resettlement, the dam has been criticized for its polluted waters. Hundreds of factories, mines and waste dumps were submerged over the years and additional urban growth along the reservoir has caused waste water discharge to double between 2000 and 2005, according to International Rivers, a California-based NGO that aims to protect rivers.

An island of waste was floating in the dam's brown waters when Reuters visited.

"After the Three Gorges dam was built, the deterioration of the water quality is very obvious and it is irreversible," said Ai Nanshan, a professor of environmental sciences at Sichuan University. "The water flow has slowed down, so its ability to purify itself has deteriorated."

The dam has accelerated development along the reservoir by 50 to 100 years, said Chen Lei, another official in the Three Gorges operations department.

"If not for the Three Gorges project, their (residents') lives would be confined as before, deep in the mountains, a relatively backward state of poverty," he said.

RECONSTRUCTION

Authorities are building a new town nearby called Shennongxi to house residents of Huangtupo.

Shuai was among the first to move to one of the many seven-storey apartment blocks painted in cream, pink and grey colors that stand amid scorched red earth. If you don't move, we won't care about you, she said a local official told her last year.

For income, Shuai sells groceries from her apartment. She was given 5,000 yuan ($790) as a "reward" for being among the first to move, according to a June 2011 government document she showed Reuters; 200 yuan per person in her family and 1,000 yuan in "moving fees".

Officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the forced relocation and compensation given to residents.

The local government will offer a new apartment and cash as compensation for resettlement, it said in a December 2009 document explaining the scheme, without providing details of the amounts.

It will only compensate residents according to the floor area of their previous apartments, but will not pay extra if the apartment in Shennongxi is bigger than their previous homes.

Residents who "reject the relocation or delay relocating" or "make unreasonable demands for compensation again" after being compensated will receive a warning, the local government said.

Shuai reckons 30 households have moved to Shennongxi. Her grandson, who attends school in the town, lives away from his entire family because there's virtually no transport.

"By moving here, we have no way to survive," she said.

In Huangtupo, many residents await the order to resettle.

"The (first) time when we moved, our home, our land, our fruit trees, they were all finished, they were all drowned by the water," said Li Huanggui, 94, sitting in her home in the only apartment block left standing amid demolished buildings.

A shop owner, surnamed Qing, has been told she has to move in the second half of the year. She relocated the first time in 2000 when water from the reservoir flooded her home.

Asked if she thought the government would compensate her this time, she scoffed.

"The more we move, the poorer we get," she said. ($1 = 6.3586 Chinese yuan)

By Sui-Lee Wee@Reuters