Flooding and Welfare of Fishers' Households in Lagos State, Nigeria

ABSTRACT The study examined the effect of flooding on the fishing households' welfare in Lagos State. Data were

collected with the aid of structured questionnaire to elicit information from 412 fishers selected through a multistage

random sampling technique. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, budgetary technique and inferential

statistics. Results revealed that rainfall was the dominant climatic factor that had adverse effect on the fishing

communities as 81.1% of the respondents experienced loss in income due to flooding. This occurred during the raining

season between May and August. Generally, respondents have higher net income during high season when there is less

likelihood of flooding than at low season. This implies that during the high season when the volume of water is low,

fish catch is high. The mean income for the fishers that use boat technology during low and high seasons are

N51,032.38 and N105,619.47 respectively and are significantly different at 1 percent (p