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Book chapter | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Approaches to water resource development, Sokoto Valley, Nigeria: The problem of sustainability |
Author: | Adams, W.M. |
Book title: | Conservation in Africa: People, Policies, and Practice |
Year: | 1987 |
Pages: | 307-325 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Northern Nigeria |
Subjects: | agricultural projects irrigation |
Abstract: | This chapter examines two different approaches to the development of the water resources of the Sokoto Valley in northwest Nigeria. In the 1970s a large dam and extensive irrigation scheme were developed at Bakolori. Its problems, and the lessons which might be learned from its poor performance, are compared with a previous small-scale water conservation initiative in the valley between 1917 and 1921. The two approaches to water resource development were very different, and yet neither was successful. The more recent scheme is typical of large-scale top-down development, and its poor performance is easily blamed on these characteristics. The earlier project, however, had many of the features of the alternative approaches to development being advocated today. It failed for lack of technical expertise, and its problems could have been overcome. In the case of the Bakolori project, problems are not essentially soluble, because they stem from the very nature of the development itself. Bibliogr., notes, ref. |