Project Location: Lagos State, Nigeria
Introduction
Lagoon community mapping empowers local residents to identify flood-prone areas and water access points, aiding adaptation strategies in vulnerable communities in Lagos State. This participatory approach fills data gaps in resource-limited settings, supporting flood modeling and equitable resource planning.
Our Interventions
- Flood Adaptation Mapping: Communities map drainage systems, flood points, and blocked drains using tools like OpenStreetMap or KoboToolbox to predict inundation risks. In data-scarce areas like Lagos, this enables detailed urban flood models for risk management, validated against real events.
Such mapping reveals impacts of waste on flooding and informs early warning systems, as seen in Benin where 72% of villages face medium-to-high flood risks based on hazard, exposure, and vulnerability indicators.
- Water Access Mapping: Residents locate water points like boreholes, wells, and taps via participatory GIS, highlighting gaps in informal settlements. In the lagoon communities, this exposes inequalities despite high reported access rates from private wells and boreholes, guiding interventions for droughts and sanitation.
Focus groups and field validation with apps like SurveyCTO digitize data for analysis in QGIS, prioritizing underserved areas.
Key Benefits
- Affordable and open-source, ideal for low-resource contexts.
- Builds local capacity and resilience through stakeholder data sharing.
- Supports IPCC frameworks for spatial risk visualization and policy.
Implementation Steps
- Engage communities to sketch features like water infrastructure and flood zones.
- Validate with GPS tools and digitize in platforms like QGIS.
- Analyze for risk layers and share maps with authorities for adaptation plans.