Environmental Impact Assessment (Eia) of the Proposed Kiri Hydro-Electric Power Project.
ABSTRACT
This thesis assesses the potential environmental as well as the social impacts that are associated with the conversion of Kiri dam to a hydro-electric power dam.
As case studies, five villages namely; Mabonde, Gelode, wurojauro, Kiri and New Talum in the Guyuk District of the Adamawa State region respectively, were selected for questionnaire survey and scheduled focus group discussion.
A total of 150 questionnaires were administered in the villages and 8 persons from each village were involved in the scheduled focus group discussions.
Consultations were made to the institutional stakeholders of the project planning including GOBADEC, UBRBDA, State Ministry of Environment Yola, and State Ministry of Works Yola to ascertain their understanding of the project impacts on the environment.
Site visit was also undertaken to ascertain the formation and modification of the of the proposed project environment since the inception of the dam.
Geographic Information Systems and remote sensing was applied to study the changes in land-use and vegetation cover since the impoundment of the river in 1982 and it was found that 27.77 km2 of land was lost to the lake reservoir, 20.96 km2 of land was lost to flood plains and 6.82 km2 of land lost to agriculture/settlement, totaling 55.55 km2 of land lost in the last two decades.
The result of the study has revealed that the potential adverse impacts of the proposed project such as flooding, pollution and threat to public health to mention a few, are mostly limited to the construction stage of the project.
However, numerous benefits such as boost to economic growth, skill transfer to locals and increase in local economic activities are to be enjoyed during both the construction and operational stages of the hydropower project.
To avert the potential adverse environmental and social problems in the area, the study recommends equal partnership between the project owners, responsible authority (UBRBDA) with the local people to combat environmental degradation.
Furthermore, the use of computer based technologies like Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS) should be implemented to play a major role in assisting and combating the problems within the lake and dam catchment areas.
INTRODUCTION
In the technologically advanced world of the 21st century, the development imperative of renewable energy resources and hydroelectric power in particular, in developing countries is attributed to the role it plays in economic advancement and in everyday activities including production, consumption, health, and education.
Although electric energy is one of the major propellers of economic growth, one of the biggest challenges facing both developed and developing countries currently is the guarantee of a sufficient supply of environmentally friendly energy (El Bassam, 2004).
Renewable energy resources in general and hydropower in particular have been characterized as benign sources of electrical energy that can have a positive contribution to climate change mitigation (Integrated Healthcare Association; (IHA), 2003).
Research on replenishing electrical energy resources has established an empirical ground to argue why renewable resources should constitute an essential part of the electrical energy system.
The major reason includes that it is a clean alternative to greenhouse gas-producing fossil fuels and they can supply the demand from a rapid population increase in the developing countries.
The rise in the price of fossil fuels, and the depletion of its reserves makes renewable fuel possible options for developing economies (El Bassam 2004; Sternberg 2008).
These key justifications may provide decision-makers in developing countries a ground to consider renewable energy resources as an alternative source of energy or at least as part of the energy mix.
A large number of developing countries, of which Nigeria is not an exception, have framed an alternative policy that could facilitate the exploitation of locally available renewable electric energy sources such as hydropower resources.
REFERENCES
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Baskaya, S; Baskaya, E; and Sari, A. (2011), The Principal Negative Environmental Impacts Of Small Hydropower Plants In Turkey. African Journal of Agricultural Research 6(14):3384-3290
StudentsandScholarship Team.
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