The Nigeria Association of Hydrological Sciences (NAHS) believes Nigeria may face water scarcity by 2025 due to rapid population growth, increased economic activities, population migration and climate change.
This is contained in a communiqué issued in Abuja on Tuesday at the end of a four-day meeting by the association and made available to newsmen.
The communiqué was signed the Chairman and Secretary of NAHS, Prof. Constantine Mbajiorgu, and Dr Shakirudeen Odunuga respectively.
The 9-point communiqué said Nigeria’s water resources potential was sufficient to meet the current and future demands for various purposes, but required efficient and effective planning, development and sustainable management.
According to the communiqué, this sustainable management requires the appropriate number and quality of the required professional skills and manpower in the sector.
“At present, Nigeria is not a water-stressed country, but due to rapid population growth, increased economic activities, population migration and climate change; it will face serious water scarcity by 2025.
“The political will is crucial to the attainment of the objectives of the sector in meeting the planned targets,’’ the communiqué said.
It warned that water scarcity would lead to unrest and likely conflicts, except urgent steps are taken to address poor utilisation as well as involvement of quacks in the exploration of sources of water in the country.
The stakeholders noted that there were many agencies involved in water resources development and stressed the need to develop a means to allocate water resources and reduce wastage in the sector.
They also called for improved utilisation, efficiency of water resources in the country, and tasked the Federal Government to evolve a coordinating policy to monitor and conserve sources of water.
The communiqué also advised Nigerian government to take the lead in the project to recharge Lake Chad, by transferring water from Oubangui River to save the lake from completely drying up.
The communiqué noted that this will serve as part of efforts to salvage the situation and will also serve as a major source of water in the northern part of the country.
The stakeholders also advised government to engage tertiary institutions for research, data collection and analysis in the planning, development and execution of water projects for sustainability and cost reduction.
According to the communiqué, the impact of the trainings of the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Centre (RWSSC) is encouraging and efficient.
“The centre should be patronised by all in the areas of rural water supply and sanitation issues.’’
Meanwhile, experts said that the current upstream and downstream flooding from the nation’s major rivers and reservoirs were not as a consequence of climate change alone, but also consequences of capacity losses in reservoir and river channels.
They called on the Nigerian government to make fervent efforts to construct checked dams at strategic locations in the country.
“Reservoir operational rules are not meant to be static as presently is the case in the management of Nigerian reservoirs.
“It must be reviewed periodically to incorporate loss in capacities of these channels.
“The cost of evacuation of accumulated sediments at the bottom of the reservoirs outweighed the cost of constructing new ones, and the current average unit rate of dredging is about N1,500 per cubic metre.
“It is evident that the cost of evacuating the deposited sediments in any of the Nigeria reservoirs is colossal for any agency of government that must mobilise available resources among competing demands,’’ it said.
The stakeholders also urged government at all levels to take the issue of sustainable water supply seriously, especially with the attendant management issues and environmental problems highlighted.
