title: Working towards an integrated land contamination management framework for Nigeria.
abstract: Over the past five decades, Nigeria has developed a number of contaminated land legislations to address the damage caused primarily by oil and gas exploitation activities. Within these legislations exists elements of risk assessment and risk-based corrective action. Despite this progress, we argue that contaminated land management approaches in Nigeria need further development to be able to integrate new scientific information, and to address environmental, economic, and social values. By comparison, advanced contaminated land regimes in the United Kingdom (UK), the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States of America (USA) apply a number of integrative approaches (e.g. sustainability appraisal, liability regime, funding mechanisms, technology demonstration) that enable them to meet the environmental, economic, and social needs of their populations. In comparison, Nigerian governance lacks many of these mechanisms and management of contaminated land is ad hoc. In this paper we propose an integrated risk assessment framework for Nigeria that incorporates the principles of sustainability and stakeholder engagement into the decision-making processes for contaminated land risk assessment and risk management. The integrated approach relies on transparency to promote acceptance and build trust in institutions, and uses stakeholder engagement to address data deficiencies. We conclude this paper with a roadmap for how Nigeria might implement such an integrative approach into their existing contaminated land regulatory system, as well as identify a series of policy priorities that should be addressed.
authors.affiliation: School of Water, Energy, and Environment, Cranfield University, College Road, Cranfield MK43 0AL, UK.
authors.forename: Kabari
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sam
authors.affiliation: School of Water, Energy, and Environment, Cranfield University, College Road, Cranfield MK43 0AL, UK.
authors.forename: Frédéric
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Coulon
authors.affiliation: School of Water, Energy, and Environment, Cranfield University, College Road, Cranfield MK43 0AL, UK. Electronic address: g.prpich@cranfield.ac.uk.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Prpich
mesh_terms: D003657:Decision Making; D004787:Environmental Pollution / Q000517:prevention & control*; D052918:Environmental Restoration and Remediation / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D009549:Nigeria; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods; D012308:Risk Management / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Contaminated land; Integrated framework; Niger Delta; Risk assessment; Sustainability appraisal