Twumasi Yaw A, Merem Edmund C
Center for Hydrology, Soil Climatology, and Remote Sensing, Department of Plant and Soil Science, P.O. Box 1208, Alabama A&M University, Normal, AL 35762, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2006 Mar;3(1):98-106. doi: 10.3390/ijerph2006030011.
In the last decades, the Niger Delta region has experienced rapid growth in population and economic activity with enormous benefits to the adjacent states and the entire Nigerian society. As the region embarks upon an unprecedented phase of economic expansion in the 21st century, it faces several environmental challenges fuelled partly by the pressures caused by human activities such as oil and gas exploration, housing development, and road construction for transportation, economic development and demographic changes. This continued growth has resulted in environmental problems such as coastal wetland loss, habitat degradation, and water pollution, gas flaring, destruction of forest vegetation as well as a host of other issues. This underscores the urgent need to design new approaches for managing remote costal resources in sensitive tropical environments effectively in order to maintain a balance between coastal resource conservation and rapid economic development in developing countries for sustainability. Notwithstanding previous initiatives, there have not been any major efforts in the literature to undertake a remote sensing and GIS based assessment of the growing incidence of environmental change within coastal zone environments of the study area. This project is an attempt to fill that void in the literature by exploring the applications of GIS and remote sensing in a tropical coastal zone environment with emphasis on the environmental impacts of development in the Niger Delta region of Southern Nigeria. To deal with some of the aforementioned issues, several research questions that are of great relevance to the paper have been posed. The questions include, Have there been any changes in the coastal environment of the study area? What are the impacts of the changes? What forces are responsible for the changes? Has there been any major framework in place to deal with the changes? The prime objective of the paper is to provide a novel approach for assessing the state of coastal environments while the second objective seeks a contribution to the literature. The third objective is to provide a decision support tool for coastal resource managers in the assessment of environmental impacts of development in tropical areas. The fourth objective is to assess the extent of change in a tropical ecosystem with the latest advances in geo-spatial information technologies and methods. In terms of methodology, the paper draws from primary and census data sources analyzed with descriptive statistics, GIS techniques and remote sensing. The sections in the paper consist of a review of the major environmental effects and factors associated with the problem: initiatives and mitigation measures. The project offers some recommendations as part of the conservation strategies. In spite of concerted efforts by managers to address the problems, results revel that the study area experienced some significant changes in its coastal environments. These changes are attributed to socio-economic and environmental variables.
在过去几十年里，尼日尔三角洲地区人口和经济活动迅速增长，给周边各州乃至整个尼日利亚社会带来了巨大利益。随着该地区在21世纪迈入前所未有的经济扩张阶段，它面临着诸多环境挑战，部分原因是石油和天然气勘探、住房开发以及为交通、经济发展和人口变化而进行的道路建设等人类活动所带来的压力。这种持续增长导致了诸如沿海湿地丧失、栖息地退化、水污染、天然气燃烧、森林植被破坏以及许多其他问题。这凸显了迫切需要设计新方法，以便在敏感的热带环境中有效管理偏远沿海资源，从而在发展中国家实现沿海资源保护与快速经济发展之间的平衡，以确保可持续性。尽管此前有过一些举措，但文献中尚未有任何重大努力对研究区域沿海地区环境变化发生率的上升进行基于遥感和地理信息系统的评估。本项目试图通过探索地理信息系统和遥感在热带沿海地区环境中的应用来填补文献中的这一空白，重点关注尼日利亚南部尼日尔三角洲地区发展所带来的环境影响。为解决上述一些问题，本文提出了几个与之高度相关的研究问题。这些问题包括：研究区域的沿海环境是否发生了变化？这些变化产生了哪些影响？导致这些变化的因素有哪些？是否有任何主要框架来应对这些变化？本文的主要目标是提供一种评估沿海环境状况的新方法，第二个目标是为文献做出贡献。第三个目标是为沿海资源管理者提供一个决策支持工具，用于评估热带地区发展对环境的影响。第四个目标是利用地理空间信息技术和方法的最新进展评估热带生态系统的变化程度。在方法论方面，本文借鉴了通过描述性统计、地理信息系统技术和遥感分析的主要数据来源和普查数据。本文各部分包括对与该问题相关的主要环境影响和因素的综述：举措和缓解措施。该项目作为保护策略的一部分提出了一些建议。尽管管理者们齐心协力解决这些问题，但结果表明研究区域的沿海环境发生了一些重大变化。这些变化归因于社会经济和环境变量。
