“Flooding swallows communities in Kogi but some residents stay back to adapt”

[CATCH PHRASE – one phrase/sentence]

• Flooding swallows communities in Kogi but some residents stay back to adapt

[no more than two or three sentences]

• The story intends to look into how annual flooding is displacing residents in Kogi riverine communities and swallowing lands in some parts of the state. However, the major focus would be on residents, who, despite little or no mitigation efforts from the government, have chosen to remain in the communities and adapt to the climate crises.

Write two or three sentences.

• To investigate the climate change impacts in the selected communities as regards displacement-caused flooding 

1. 1. To examine the land losses caused by annual flooding

• To understand the adaptation methods adopted by selected communities and their sustainability

• The land mass of these communities has reduced
• The residential population has dropped
• The crises have become a reoccurring one
• A lot of property, businesses and investments have been either affected or gulped by the ocean

• We know that the flooding is annual and there are no or less mitigation efforts causing many to leave these riverain communities. However, we want to damage this has caused in the communities and for those who still live there, what are their adaptation methods

Human, documentary sources

• Our primary sources are residents of the communities and government official records; 
• We will also use the Google Earth visualization tool to make our map analysis by comparing the sea rise over a period of time to analyse the shoreline movement

• A reporter, alongside a fixer, will be visiting three major communities namely Ganaja village, Kabawa community and a 500-unit housing estate. Other communities that can be explored are Kpata, Adankolo and Gadumo; all located within Kogi state.  

Give a narrative description of your story idea, highlighting the salient human interest issues; the actors; your proposed intervention point(s)/story angle, planned follow-up strategies and projected outcome – In maximum 250 words.

Lokoja is known as the conference point where the River Niger and Benue meet and for residents, who are artisan farmers or fishermen, adapting to the climate crisis against poor or very low mitigation efforts from the government is their only means of survival. These adoption methods are community-based ideologies that would make these residents survive. 

Further findings also showed that the annual flooding might have swallowed some part of the lands owned by these residents causing many to relocate, but others still stay behind to secure their lands. 

This investigation intends to examine the climate adoption methods of residents in selected riverine communities (Ganaja village, Kabawa community and a 500-unit housing estate. Other communities that can be explored are Kpata, Adankolo and Gadumo). The report will also use a mapping tool to examine the extent to which flooding has affected these communities

The report will also check through the budget provisions of the states to ascertain the government provisions in mitigating flooding and how effective these budgetary provisions are.

(How do you wish to go about executing this project?)

• The writer intends to carry out the investigation and apply data-driven analysis to reporting the issue.