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SPACE-BASED DISASTER MANAGEMENT IN NIGERIA: THE ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CHARTER “SPACE AND MAJOR DISASTERS”
Globally, disasters have continued to cause severe catastrophic consequences in the loss of human lives as well as economic losses. For example, the magnitude 9.2 earthquake that occurred in the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004, caused a large tsunami that flooded more than ten coastal countries and culminated in about 300,000 deaths with severe economic and environmental impacts. Similarly, between August 23, and August 30, 2005, Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico led to 1,400 deaths with severe economic losses. Nevertheless, Nigeria is not located in high-prone natural disaster (e.g. earthquake, hurricane) zones, but the country has experienced cases of floods, coastal erosion, sand storms, landslides, oilspillage, and desertification disasters. These disasters have resulted in the loss of lives as well as properties. For example, about 100 people died in Ibadan due to flood in 2011 while 5,000 people were displaced with severe economic impacts. As a result, disaster management in Nigeria has become a primary focus of Government at the Federal, State and Local levels. Given the role of space technology in disaster management, the Nigerian Government, through the National Space Research and Development Agency launched NigeriaSat-1 earth observation medium resolution satellite in 2003. The satellite was launched into the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) and as a result, Nigeria through the DMC is a member of the international charter “space and major disasters”. The Charter was initiated by the European Space Agency (ESA), the French Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency in 2000. Today, the membership of the charter has expanded to become an international collaboration among space agencies known as the Charter members. The founding agreement of the Charter is to provide a mechanism for rapid tasking of satellites for immediate, shortterm disaster preparedness and response. Consequently, the Charter provides free of charge optical and non-optical satellite-based information services to national disaster management authorities – the Charter authorized users – and humanitarian organizations for supporting immediate response to major natural or man-made disasters. Once the charter is activated, any satellite within the Charter that flies over the disaster area for which the Charter was activated is expected to image such area. Consequently, this manuscript documents the charter activations in Nigeria in 2010, 2011, and 2012, in response to the flood disasters in Sokoto, Ibadan, and Adamawa, kogi and Bayelsa.
Keywords: Disaster, UN-SPIDER, Hazards, Disaster Response, Flood, Nigeria