The proposed Eko Atlantic City project, Victoria Island, Lagos: preliminary impact assessment of land reclamation on the aquatic lives and climate change. (Special Issue: Covid-19 and climate change.)

Olaniyi, W. A.

The effects of climate change in the face of land reclamation among other anthropogenic activities are of great concern to aquatic genetic resources and biodiversity. This study was designed to assess the preliminary impact of the proposed Eko Atlantic City (EAC) project on the aquatic lives and/or biodiversity, and the level of development and challenges that have implications on climate change in Victoria Island and its environs in Lagos State, Nigeria. The selected areas such as Lamgbasa, Badore, Ajah and Victoria Island were evaluated using the snowball sampling approach, whereby 111 respondents were assessed. Results showed that land reclamation and construction activities had impacted on the aquatic lives and the primitive fishing occupation (5.5%). Respondents (44.4%) agreed that the on-going EAC had contributed to the development of Lagos State, however, negative impacts of climate change such as ocean surge, sea level rise, flooding among others were high but with low level of adaptive capacity agreement (41.7%). Furthermore, analysis showed varying degrees in the extent of severity of problems encountered from climate change effects such as rainfall, flooding, temperature, health issues among others. The study revealed that these communities were susceptible or vulnerable to the impacts of climate change such as coastal erosion, flooding, storm/ocean surge, sea level rise etc and importantly loss of non- renewable aquatic genetic resources. The government is hereby advised to have sound policies for adaptation and mitigation strategies to protect these non-renewable genetic resources and effect of climate change activities.