Space-Base Disaster Management and Poverty Reduction in Nigeria

Poverty level in Nigeria is at variance with the country’s immense wealth and natural disasters are on the increase and claiming lives as well as properties. This paper looks at the use of space base technology in disaster management and how disaster management can be integrated into poverty reduction to help reduce the vulnerability of poor and protect their livelihoods and development gains. It starts by conceptualizing poverty and vulnerability and proceeds to examine Nigeria’s economy, poverty and natural disaster. Thereafter, the paper looks at the introduction of space technology in disaster mitigation and management in Nigeria and the challenges associated with it. Suggestions are made for effective use of space technology for disaster management and poverty reduction in Nigeria.

increase vulnerability to disasters" (Özerdem, 2003). Consequently, vulnerability is strongly linked to poverty, as is disaster risk management to poverty reduction (Eschborn, 2005). The second section of this paper attempts to conceptually show this relationship. The third second presents some stylized facts on Nigeria. The fourth section examines some disaster risk management and application of space technology to disaster management. Section five looks at Nigeria's space programme, challenges and way forward while section six concludes.

Conceptual Illustration
A disaster is a swift, catastrophic event that seriously disrupts the functioning of a community or society and causes human, material, and economic or environmental losses that exceed the community's or society's ability to cope using its own resources (IFRC, 2012). The combination of hazards, vulnerability and the inability to reduce the potential negative consequences of risk results in disaster. As a result, disasters influence the mental, socioeconomic, political as well as the cultural state of the affected area. Hence, disasters are considered as the consequence of inappropriately managed risk (Quarantelli, 1998). These risks are the product of a combination of both hazard/s and vulnerability. Therefore, hazards that strike in areas with low vulnerability are less likely to become disasters, as is the case in uninhabited regions (James et al., 2013). Disasters are generally grouped into two types, namely anthropogenic or human-made and natural. Anthropogenic or human-made disasters are associated with human action or inaction. Examples of such disasters include: technological failures, industrial accidents, oil spills, transportation accidents and nuclear explosions/radiation. A natural hazard is a geophysical, atmospheric, or hydrological event that has potential for causing harm or loss (Benson and Clay, 2004). Usually, these events are both uncommon and extreme, in the perspective of the range of natural phenomena such as rainfall, tropical storms, flooding, and seismic tremor or earthquake. Hence, there is a need to determine risk. This is understood to be "a combination of the probability, or frequency, of occurrence of a defined hazard and the magnitude of the consequences of the occurrence" (Royal Society, 1992). A natural disaster is the occurrence of an abnormal or infrequent hazard that affects vulnerable communities or geographic areas, causing substantial damage, disruption, and perhaps casualties and leaving the affected communities unable to function normally (Benson and Clay, 2004). From an economic perspective, a disaster implies some combination of losses, in human, physical, and financial capital, and a reduction in economic activity such as income generation, investment, consumption, production, and employment in the "real" economy. There may also be severe effects on financial flows such as the revenue and expenditure of public and private bodies (Benson and Clay, 1998). Vulnerability is the potential to suffer harm or loss, expressed in terms of sensitivity and resilience or of the magnitude of the consequences of the potential event (Benson and Clay, 2004). The sensitivity of economic behavior to a disaster shock is reflected at a macroeconomic or sectoral level in the deviation of economic aggregates from the trends that were expected without taking the effects of the event into account. Although this paper focuses on natural disaster, generally, disasters can have potentially significant implications for public finance, increasing expenditure and simultaneously reducing domestic revenue, in turn resulting in increased domestic or external borrowing, substantial alterations to existing investment, and recurrent expenditure plans or monetary expansion (Benson and Clay, 2004). Figure 1below is a schematic evolution of disasters.

Hazard Vulnerability
Disaster risk Disaster Source: Adapted from (Eschborn, 2005) Figure 1: schematic evolution of disasters The relationship between the level of development of an economy and the impact of a disaster is particularly complex. Influences include the physical infrastructure, the degree of sectoral and geographical integration, economic specialization, the coverage and robustness of the financial sector, government revenue raising capabilities and the openness of the economy. This complexity in part reflects the fact that development itself is a non-linear process and that there are many different paths of development (ODI, 2005). Least-developed economies are widely perceived as most vulnerable, experiencing the greatest direct losses relative to a country's wealth.
At higher levels of development, the financial costs of capital losses are massive (as illustrated by Kobe and Hurricane Katrina), but the economic impacts of disasters are proportionately less. This partly reflects increased investment in mitigation and preparedness measures, improved environmental management, greater access to financial resources and lower associated opportunity costs and a reduction in the scale of absolute poverty and thus of household vulnerability (ODI, 2005). A greater share of privatesector economic assets is also likely to be adequately insured against disaster and the burden diffused by global reinsurance. The combined effects of changes in sensitivity (direct and indirect impacts) and the time to recover (resilience) suggest, as illustrated in Figure 2, a Kuznets' Curve or inverted U relationship between economic development and disaster vulnerability. According to Okuyama (n.d.), with the increasing complexity of society and interdependency within and across countries, recent studies found that this negative relationship between development level and disaster losses appears not so straightforward: total impact over GDP per capita has an inverted "U"curve relationship. Least developed countries tend to have simple economic structures, such as agriculture, so that the impact may not spread to the entire system; higher-income level countries have sufficient financial and technological resources to better manage disaster risks through the implementation of countermeasures and to better manage the adverse impacts of disaster; and middle-income level countries with some diversifications seem more secure, but the higher order effects can be much greater and thus the total impacts from a disaster can be larger than in a simple agro-economy's (see Vulnerability is not only a key concept in the discussion about disaster risk management, but it also is a central issue in the debate on poverty. Here, attempt is made to look at the connection between poverty reduction and disaster risk management because their inter-linkage is seen as essential for sustainable development. It proceeds from a complex notion of poverty that is not confined to the economic component, but also encompasses participation, education and health. Source: Adapted from OECD (2001) Figure 4 -Dimensions of poverty As depicted in Figure 4 above, each box represents an important dimension of poverty, which affectsand is affected byall the others. Household members may consume little and be vulnerable partly because they lack assets, often because of inadequate income, poor health and education, or because they lose their few productive assets as a result of shocks. Lack of human rights and political freedom indicates a risk of violent conflict shocks. Vulnerability and social exclusion hamper human and political capabilities, reducing incomes and assets, and so on. The fact that different dimensions of poverty are tightly interrelated, while still distinct and imperfectly correlated, is a major reason for a multidimensional concept" (OECD 2001). Natural hazards disrupt poor people's livelihoods, and poor people are often more vulnerable to natural hazards. The negative and positive aspects of the relationship between vulnerability/disaster and poverty can be divided in four realms as show below in Figure 5.

Short-sighted poverty
Poverty reduction can reduce reduction measures can increase vulnerability vulnerability

Negative realm Positve realm
Disasters can set back Disasters can provide poverty reduction efforts poverty reduction opportunities

Disaster realm
Source: Adapted from: UNDP (1994) Figure 5: The relationship between poverty and vulnerability to disasters

Nigeria: Economy, Poverty and Natural Disaster
Nigeria is a West African economy with a long coastline along the Atlantic Ocean. The country shares international borders with Benin, Chad, Cameroon and Niger. Nigeria ranks 32 in the world in terms of total area (see Figure 6 in Appendix). The terrain of the country consists of southern lowlands and plateaus in the central region. The south east region has a mountainous surface, while the north consists of plains. According to the 2009 estimates, the country has a total population in excess of 154 million, of which almost 70% live below the international poverty line (Economic Watch, 2010). Nigeria's economy is overly dependent on the petroleum sector. The economy is one of the most developed economies in Africa. According to the UN classification, Nigeria is a middle-income nation with developed financial, communication and transport sectors. It has the second largest stock exchange in the continent. The petroleum industry is central to the Nigerian economic profile. It is the 12 th largest producer of petroleum products in the world (Economic Watch, 2010). The industry accounts for almost 80% of the GDP share and above 90% of the total exports (Economic Watch, 2010). Outside the petroleum sector, the Nigerian economy is highly amorphous and lacks basic infrastructure. Several failed efforts have been made after 1990 to develop other industrial sectors.
Owing to the surge in international oil prices during 2007-08, Nigeria managed an annual GDP of US$352.3 billion.
The nation ranks 33 in the world in terms of GDP. The GDP per capita is US $2,400(Economic Watch, 2010). See Table 1 below for some indicators of economic growth in Nigeria. Source: Oyeranti and Olayiwola (2005) Widespread poverty and lack of industrial resources are the biggest challenges for Nigeria. As indicated in Table 2, the incidence of poverty in Nigeria increased from 28.1 percent in 1980 to 88.0 percent in the year 2002. This percentage rate represent in absolute term 86 million people out of an estimated population of about 116.4 million people (Ijaiya, Ijaiya, Bello, and Ajayi, 2011). The poverty situation in Nigeria also depicts regional variation. For example, within these periods the poverty rate was higher in the northern agro-climatic zone at 40 percent compared with the middle and southern zones at 38 percent and 24 percent respectively (Francis et. al., 1996;FOS various issues). Similarly, Nigeria's rank in the Human Development Index in the year 2008 remained low (0.470), being the 158th among 182 countries (ADB, 2010). The use of socio-economic indicators like per capita income, life expectancy at birth (years), access to health care services, access to safe water, access to education, access to sanitation facilities, and electricity also depicts the extent of poverty in Nigeria. As indicated in Table 3, the rate of poverty in Nigeria has not shown any remarkable reduction when viewed from these indicators and when compared with some countries in Africa. For instance, apart from the early 1980s when the nation's per capita income witnessed an increase the situations in the 1990s and early 2000 were pathetic (Ijaiya et al., 2011 income, price stability and declining unemployment among others, which are attained through proper harmonization of monetary and fiscal policies (Ijaiya et al.,2011). The basic need approach focuses attention on the basic necessities of life such as food, health care, education, shelter, clothing, transport, water and sanitation, which could enable the poor live a decent life. The rural development approach focuses attention on the total emancipation and empowerment of the rural sector. Ogwumike (2001) grouped the strategies for poverty reduction in Nigeria into three erasthe pre-SAP era, the SAP era and the democratic era.
In the pre-SAP era, the measures that were predominant were the Operation Feed the Nation, the River Basin Development Authorities, the Agricultural Development Programmes, the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme, the Rural Electrification Scheme and the Green Revolution. In the SAP era the following poverty reduction measures were introduced; the Directorate for Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructures, the National Directorate of Employment, the Better Life Programme, the Peoples' Bank, the Community Banks, the Family Support Programme and the Family Economic Advancement Programme. The democratic era witnessed the introduction of the Poverty Alleviation Programme (PAP) designed to provide employment to 200,000 people all over the country (Ijaiya et al., 2011). It was also aimed at inculcating and improving better attitudes towards a maintenance culture in highways, urban and rural roads and public buildings. By 2001 PAP was phased out and fused into the newly created National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) which was an integral part of the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS). 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 (James et al., 2013). Similarly, between August 23, and August 30, 2005, Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico led to 1,400 deaths with severe economic losses (James et al., 2013). 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, oil-spillage, and desertification disasters. These disasters have resulted in the loss of lives as well as properties. For example, the first flood hit Ibadan, the headquarters of old western region, Nigeria (now the capital of Oyo State) was in 1948. Subsequently, serious flood disasters have occurred in Ibadan in 1963, 1978, April 30, 1980, 1985, 1987, and 1990 destroying many valuable things (Adedeji et al, 2012). About 100 people died in Ibadan due to flood in 2011 while 5,000 people were displaced with severe economic impacts (James et al., 2013). region. They made reference to a tremor that rocked the region in September 11, 2009, stressing that Nigeria is no longer immune from earthquakes (Igomu, 2010).See Tables 4 and 5 below for an overview of natural disasters in Nigeria for the period 1980 to 2010 and the average per year. The vulnerability of a population is a determinant of a disaster, as this essentially decides whether ra hazard remains a hazard, or whether through contact with a vulnerable population this hazard turns into a disaster (Prowse 2003). This implies on the one hand, that the poverty situation in which a person lives shapes his/her vulnerability and the degree of impact the disaster has on him/her. On the other hand, the impact of the disaster affects people's future vulnerability and thus influences their poverty situation. Nigeria is vulnerable to many hazards, including, but not limited to, fires, flooding, transportation and industrial accidents, and political conflicts (Ibem, 2011). Nigeria is vulnerable to these and other hazards and disaster impacts because of high population densities in urban areas (50% of Nigerians live in urban areas) (Nwaka, 2005) (scarcity of land has led to inordinate construction of structures in hazardous areas), an inability to integrate risk reduction measures into national development plans and programs (Abang, 2005), and poverty (NDMF, 2010).

International Disaster Management Initiatives
Although natural disasters cannot be avoided, studies have shown that adequate disaster management plan can reduce its impacts on lives and properties. Moreover, disasters often do not respect national or international boundaries. As a result, governments and international organizations are cooperating to promote global and regional initiatives to address the full/partial disaster management cycle consisting of mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery (James et al., 2012).   (James et al., 2013).

Introduction of Space Technology in Disaster Mitigation and Management in Nigeria
Recognizing the significant role of space technology in the attainment of rapid sustainable socio-economic development, the Federal Government of Nigeria took a bold step by putting in place a space policy and space science and technology programme. Subsequently, in 1999, an institutional framework, the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), was established. The first Nigerian earth observation satellite -NigeriaSat-1 was successfully launched into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) from Plesetsk, Moscow, on 27 September 2003 on a Kosmos Rocket along with two other Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) micro-satellites -UK DMC, and BILSAT (Turkey satellite).The choice of a micro-satellite using current technology was influenced by its low cost, affordability, and the advantage of performance comparable with the expensive large satellites and the possibility of supporting capacity building (Boroffice, 2008). NigeriaSat-1 is a micro-satellite deployed in to a polar sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 686km. It is a 100kg spacecraft with Push-broom scanning technology, and designed for a 5-year minimum lifespan. It has a swath width of 600km and the imaging payload is 3-band multi-spectral imager in the green, red and near-infrared bands 0.52-0.62 (Green), 0.63-0.69 (Red), 0.76-0.9 (NIR) and has a Ground Sampling Distance (GSD)/spatial resolution of 32m (Boroffice, 2008).The spacecraft has on-board data storage capacity of 2 × 0.5 Gbyte SSDR to support imaging activities, with a store and forward communications system. It has a space-bourne GPS for orbit determination, two on-board computers for data processing, and a butane propulsion system for orbit maintenance/station keeping (Boroffice, 2008).NigeriaSat-1 is one of the five satellites of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) built to address the need for daily revisit and global coverage to monitor natural disasters and other dynamic phenomena.
Taking into account the reality of direct access to affordable, real-time and reliable space-derived data, the NigeriaSat-1 data has been used in many projects some of which are: Flood hazards/risk mapping in the Shiroro Dam area; Mapping of settlements and major roads and water bodies; gully erosion mapping in the south eastern part of Nigeria; monitoring deforestation and implications for bio-diversity in Nigeria; predictive model for desertification early warning; patio-temporal assessment of climate and human-induced impact on ecosystem degradation and water resources management; and land use/land cover. To ensure continuity, NigeriaSat-2 was introduced. It carries the 32-m multi-spectral payload in NigeriaSat-1.It provides valuable geographically referenced high-resolution satellite imaging for applications in mapping, water resources management, agricultural land use, population estimation, health hazard monitoring and disaster mitigation and management. In summary, satellites monitoring Earth's resources and natural disasters have different repeat pass frequency and spatial resolution (unless it belongs to the same series of satellites for the purpose of continuation of data flow with same specifications). Similarly, different satellites have different types of sensors on-board, such as, panchromatic, multispectral, infrared and thermal. All these sensors have applications in disaster mitigation, though depending on the electromagnetic characteristics of the objects on Earth and the nature of disaster itself (Nirupama and Simonovic, 2002).
Prior to the use of space technology in Nigeria, it was a major challenge to identify communities devastated by disasters (particularly natural disasters in the rural areas) using terrestrial approaches. This is particularly true since access to such remote areas is often made impossible by the disaster. However, access to earth observation satellite imagery provides a solution by enabling synoptic view of areas affected by disasters as well as the optimum access to such areas. The results from the use of space technology have enhanced the ability of NEMA to respond to disasters swiftly and efficiently in Nigeria between 2010 and 2012 for floods in Sokoto (Charter Call 324 and 326), Ibadan (Charter Call 370), and Adamawa (Charter Call 407), Kogi (Charter Call 415), Bayelsa (Charter Call 416), respectively (James et al., 2013). See Appendix for satellite images ofRivers stateand Bayelsa State flood disaster.

Obstacles in Disaster Risk Reduction in Nigeria
Nigeria like any other African country has some major gaps in the practice of disaster risk reduction as pointed out in a baseline study undertaking inthe first phase of the development of the Africa Regional Strategy on Disaster Risk Reduction. Disaster risk reduction is yet to be effectively institutionalized in Nigeria. Although the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has been established to oversee a more holistic approach to the management of disasters in all phases and all associated consequences, however, sub-regional disaster management programmes in the country are yet to be developed. Technical institutions like the Nigerian Meteorological Agency are few and their services are limited due to resource, capacity and other constraints. Government has a key responsibility to create the facilitating environment in which people can be empowered to prevent or reduce natural disaster risks. However, because of the failure or absence of development that can arise partly from an unfavorable environment, people are highly vulnerable to disaster risks in Nigeria. For example, key sectoral policies, such as on food and agriculture, rural and urban development and enterprise development, do not sufficiently consider how they impact people's vulnerability to hazards. Furthermore, there is no tax or financial incentives to promote greater use of engineered and disaster-resistant construction. Also, for so long most disaster management structures focus on one or two key natural hazards, mainly flood and drought. Policy frameworks rarely cover small localized disasters. The practice of risk identification is limited in Nigeria. Early warning systems are only now being developed. The ability of people to take informed actions to secure their safety during disasters also depends on availability of timely and targeted information on disaster risk reduction. A major gap in disaster risk reduction in Nigeria is weak knowledge management. There is inadequate attention to information management and communications, and training and research. Consequently, there are gaps in knowledge about disaster risks. Nigeria's space exploration still requires more infrastructure. The cost of space infrastructurelaunchers, in-space systems and supporting ground operations, human activity in space, and the knowledge and technology base that supports the infrastructure is so exorbitant. In practice, national disaster risk reduction structures in Nigeria generally suffer from inadequate financial support. Inadequate financing for disaster risk reduction is the result of many factors including the low priority accorded to disaster reduction in national budgeting; lack of dedicated disaster funding mechanisms, etc.

Way Forward
Prospective assessment of the risk of disasters to development and the effect of development interventions on disasters, effective early warning of impending risks, and systematic assessment of disaster losses are particularly important in helping communities and the country to determine and understand the actions which they may take in order to reduce the impact of potential and existing risks.
To help enhance access to information and to expand information dissemination, there is the need to strengthen disaster risk reduction information services and public communications mechanisms, including space technology and geographical information systems. It is necessary to encourage and facilitate public-private partnerships that increase the availability of and accessibility to these means of disaster risk information and communications. For disaster risk reduction communications systems to empower communities threatened by impending disasters, risk reduction information must be provided in good time, precise, prompt, reliable and actionable. Effective disaster risk reduction communications requires that the target population not only receives advance information on hazards and vulnerability changes but also that they understand the content of the message, accept it, believe it and know how to use it to guide their response actions. Public education and awareness-strengthening processes about potential risks and the role of risk information in disaster risk reduction needs to be continuous to promote this process. Public awareness needs to be undertaken through all means of communications interaction between disaster risk reduction authorities and the public and at all levels.
Facilitating participatory design and implementation of disaster risk reduction interventions can increase people's participation in them. Institutionalizing risk reduction at the local level involves modern management approaches that emphasize decentralized and coordinated partnerships between disaster management agencies and the people, based on the principle of self-consent. It is therefore important to encourage governments to accelerate the decentralization of disaster risk reduction mechanisms, particularly local-level risk management interventions. Given the explicit cause-and-effect links between disasters and development interventions, development policy should aim at reducing basic societal risks while attaining sustainable development objectives. Balancing these two goals requires incorporating disaster risk reduction in development policies, strategies and programmes at local and national.

Conclusion
Orbiting in space, satellites can cover vast and remote areas of the Earth over many years spanning national boundaries and detecting global patterns of environmental change not easily observed from the ground. Data from satellites, collected digitally, can be processed with specialized computer software yielding accurate, timely and useful information products which inform decision-and policy-making. At global and regional scales, thanks to space technology, knowledge of the various components of the Earth system is improving. Investment towards making use of the space technology is worth because improvement in instrumentation and real time prediction will bring about reduction in disaster damages; better prediction; accurate and timely damage   (Ijaiya et al., 2011). Source: James et al. (2013)