INVESTIGATING THE MENACE OF SOIL EROSION IN LAFIA MUNICIPALITY, NASARAWA STATE, NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

This work used primary informations from field measurements, surveyed ingrained view of the inhabitants, self-experience& observations of the research team, as well as reviewed literature. It appraised the nature, perceived causes, impacts, control attempts of the incidence of soil erosion in Lafia City, Nasarawa State, Nigeria, and mapped out promising solutions to it. The study found that, soil erosion has been the major environmental disaster bedeviling the township, as it doesn’t spare an inch of interred surface within the city vicinity, in fact, many neighborhoods was completely under its siege. And the menace has been incessantly claiming and threatening lives, properties, day-to-day activities, and the general wellbeing of the physical environment. Even with, the situation was tends to be overlooked, thus witnessing an astronomical worsening daily.  The article finally recommends five doable ways forward for all the stakeholders’ perusal, namely; biological control of drought & trample resistant weed replantation of bare grounds, intensive anticipatory public enlightenment campaign, constituting community-based anti-erosion laws and taskforces, eroded surfaces embankment, and infiltration and damming of excess discharge which might be used as an add-on benefit for irrigation farming.

Keywords: Soil Erosion, Natural Causes, Anthropogenic Causes, Impacts, Lafia City