Climate Change in South-East Nigeria: Losing Homes and Farmlands, Changing Settlements and the Future

Abstract

The study is an assessment of the effects of climate change in South Eastern region. Apart from struggling with the scars of a civil war, the region is experiencing exponential increase in industrialisation, manifesting in a number of industrial clusters which has given rise in the level of industrial gas emissions, establishment of housing estates, resulting in large scale deforestation in a region already threatened by floods, and gully erosion. The study examined the trend in erosion and flooding in South East region of Nigeria, the effects of erosion and flooding in the region, the constitutive efforts of governments to address the effects of erosion and flooding, the implications for regional and national development as well as a conclusion. The findings show that the people of the South East have had their fair- share of the devastating impact of the Climate change, as manifested in the apparent changes in general weather pattern, increasing level of erosion menace in many States across the region, poor yield in agricultural produce, resettlement of residents as a result of flooding, among others. The paper concludes that community based interventions are relevant to sustain government initiatives to mitigate the effects of climate change, especially erosion and flooding in Southeast, Nigeria.