Lagos ranked 15th among cities facing risk of flood losses

Bola Olajuwon in the Guardian of Nigeria: By 2050, the world’s 136 largest coastal cities could risk combined yearly losses of $1 trillion (750 billion euros) from floods unless authorities in the affected areas drastically raise their defences.

 According to a study, which gave the warning Sunday, current losses are about $6 billion yearly, with four cities –Miami, New York and New Orleans in the United States and Guangzhou in China – incurring 43 per cent of the costs.

 However, Lagos is ranked 15th among top 20 cities in terms of population exposed to coastal flooding in the 2070s, including both climate change and socio-economic change. The current exposed population is 357,000 while estimated exposed population future will be 3,229,000.

Other African countries that also featured in the study are Alexander in Egypt (ranked 11th) and Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire 16th.  For population, 90 per cent  of the exposure in the 2070s is contained in 11countries (China, USA, India, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam and Bangladesh as well as Myanmar, Egypt, Nigeria and Indonesia).

The authors, World Bank economist, Stephane Hallegatte and colleagues, in the report published in the journal, Nature Climate Change, composed a loss risk scenario based on city population growth as well as different levels of sea level rise, protection upgrades and subsidence – the sinking of surface areas often linked to the extraction of oil or other ground resources....

Downtown Lagos, shot by Ulf Ryttgens, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 1.0 Generic license