Baseline ecosystems and sensitivity to oil impacts around the lower segment of Forcados River, western Niger Delta, Nigeria
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Date
2011
Authors
Fasona, M.J
Soneye, A.S.O
Nwokedi, M
Oladeinde, M
Journal Title
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Department of Geography, University of Lagos
Abstract
Oil exploration has high potential to disrupt socio-ecological systems when not properly managed. Various techniques of impact analyses are normally adopted to safeguard ecosystems at various stages of resource exploration. This study attempts to create a simplified environmental sensitivity index mapping of ecosystems to hazardous chemical leakage in the oil rich lower Forcados area of the Niger Delta using Landsat image-derived ecology data integrated with biological and socio-economic data. These were ranked using multi-criteria analysis based on ecosystems productivity, oil-ecosystem interaction, ease of cleanup, importance of fauna species to rural livelihood, and human weight including frequency of interaction with an ecosystem. The final analysis was done within GIS. The result suggests mangrove ecology as possessing the highest sensitivity to oil activities and paved surfaces have the least.
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Scholarly article
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Citation
M. Fasona, A. Soneye, M. Nwokedi and M. Oladeinde (2011): Baseline ecosystems and sensitivity to oil impacts around the lower segment of Forcados River, western Niger Delta, Nigeria, Lagos Journal of Geoinformation Sciences, 1(1), p49-63. Department of Geography, UNILAG, NIGERIA