The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) should as a matter of urgency establish a distinct department of Surveying and Geoinfomatics with professional surveyors to mange the department in order to effectively combat the ravaging flooding situations in Nigeria.
A professor of Surveying and Geoinformatics at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, Professor Kamorudeen Aleem gave this advise while delivering a paper entitled “Roles of Surveying and Mapping in Flood Management and Control”, at the 2018 Annual Seminar of the Surveyors vanguard held in Ibadan on Thursday.
The seminar was attended by NIS President, Surveyor Alabo Charlesye Charles who was represented by his deputy; Chairman of Nigerian Institution of Surveyor in Osun State, Surveyor Alamu and NIS chairman in Oyo state, Surveyor Aderemi Kobiowu.
Aleem who noted that this is as a veritable and constructive step to take in order to achieve effective an efficient flood management and control added that the separate department in the NEMA would enable the the agency to fill the impact of the surveyors in quick response to disaster.
He noted that with necessary surveying and Mapping equipment such as drone to monitor the flood in order to take immediate action. He said “Drone is an aircraft without a pilot. It gathers information about the flood ravaging area and gives us information so that we know what to do so that we can evacuate people from therein immediately. One advantage of drone is that when anything happens to it, no life is lost.
Aleem explained that the society at large needs to be conscious of their environment and and a adopt preventive measures to mitigate the effects of flooding.
“The Society at large needs to use preventive measure with proper planning and adoption and adoption of effective mitigation measures particularly in areas that are prone to flooding”, he said.
Speaking in the same vein, Hydrographer-General of the Nigeria Ports Authority, Surveyor Olumide Omotoso, while emphasising the need for every member of the society to prevent flooding noted that it is not neccessarily the volume of flood that kills, but also the speed with which it moves. He argued thatmembers of the public should be carried along bybth e Givernment and other stakeholders in the war against flooding.
Omotoso also posited that before mapping could be introduced, it is important to have data of the society so as to ascertain the areas with flooding challenges as this will make mapping meaningful.
