Flood Risk Assessment of Trademore Estate and its Environs in The Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

Flood is a common disaster affecting the liveshood and properties of humans. It has a history of causing great damage to infrastructure, disrupt transportation activities and land. It is therefore prudent that such natural hazard is addressed in a way to reduce the impact it causes on people and the environment. This research aimed at carrying out Flood risk assessment of Trademore Estate and its environs by analyzing the effect of changes in Land use land cover (LULC), susceptibility of the area to flood and evaluate the potential impact of increase in the level of runoff water on the infrastructure. This study employed multidisciplinary approach combining Remote Sensing, Geographical Information System (GIS) and ground Surveying method. The results of this study show a significant change in land use land cover between 2014 and 2024 by 41.82% increase in built up area, 13.44% decrease in vegetation, 3.16% decrease in water, 8.16 % increase in bare land and 32.97% decrease in farmland. Using the weight sum analysis, the impact level is categorized into high, moderate, low and least impact; the extent covered by each category are: 8.07 km² (19.2%) for high impact, 10.16 km² (24.2%) for moderate, 12.73 km² (30.3%) for low and 11 km² (26.2%) for least impact. Trademore Estate and its environs occupies a total area of 41.96km² and the flood susceptibility analyses shows that Highly susceptible area occupies 2.15km², susceptible area occupies 28.50km², less susceptible area occupies 11.29km² and least susceptible occupies 0.02km². There are total of 3712 houses within the existing estate in the study area captured from the satellite image, the flood risk assessment shows that 366 houses has a highly vulnerable impact of 5m rise in water level, 387 houses occupy moderately vulnerable area and 3000 houses occupies least vulnerable areas. The study is a necessary input for mitigating flood hazards in the study area and will serve a good purpose in decisions making for the Government, urban planners and policy makers by emphasizing the need for stakeholder’s investment in building flood resilient infrastructure, make regulations to prevent new development in flood prone area and provide shelter centers within to safeguard people during flooding.