Socioeconomic Impact of Gully Erosion in Kuje and Gwagwalada Area Councils, FCT Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

The study was carried out with the view to assess the consequences of gully erosion on the means of livelihood of the people living in Kuje and Gwagwalada area councils, and the available control and coping measures. Relevant data chiefly from field measurements and structured questionnaire administered to respondents within the 5km radius of the 20 selected gully sites were used for the analysis. The gullies as identified were characterised by average age of 8 years including the average depth, width and length of 3.14m,  6.27m and 155.55m respectively, while the inhabitants of the study area are  predominantly farmers represented by 30% of the study population compared to  other socioeconomic activities. The major consequence as indicated by the 30.5% of the total respondents was poverty, as a result of loss or reduction of income by the incidence of gully erosions in their communities. The total land intake by the 20 gullies in the study area is estimated to be 21341.2m², while the soil loss is calculated to be 93131.25m³. All the respondents however agreed  that there are negative impacts of gully erosion on their means of livelihood, but  may be ‘light’ or ‘moderate’ or ‘severe’ rate of impacts as indicated in the scale of 1-10. Also, the two basic gully control measures employed in the study area are the mechanical and biological techniques, which were not very effective.  Meanwhile, the spearman rank correlation coefficient adopted statistically for this study showed that there is a large degree of relationship between the impacts of gully erosion and the socioeconomic activities in the study area. The study therefore recommended that the farmers and the real estate developers  should ensure the use of erosion brakes on their farms and sites respectively,  and the government should invest more on the issue of gully erosion carrying  all the stakeholders along, considering system approach.