‘Nigeria needs constructive mapping to reduce flooding’

Professional bodies and agencies, including the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), need to establish a Department of Surveying and Geo-infomatics with professional surveyors to manage it to combat flooding in Nigeria, it has been learnt.

A professor of Surveying and Geo-informatics at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, Prof Kamorudeen Aleem, gave this advice while delivering a paper, titled: Roles of Surveying and Mapping in Flood Management and Control, at this year’s annual seminar of the surveyors vanguard in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

Aleem said establishing such a department would lead to an effective an efficient flood management and control.

The academic noted that having the department at NEMA would enable the agency to effectively use surveyors for quick response to disasters.

He added that using surveying and mapping equipment, such as drone, to monitor flooding would enable NEMA to take immediate action.

Aleem 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.”