Land reclamation benefits in Nigeria

According to Dirk Heijboer, Royal Haskoning: “The project will have major positive effects in restoring and protecting the shoreline and, at the same time, minimal side effects.”

Steadily increasing erosion at Bar Beach has begun to present a severe threat to the existence of Victoria Island, the current financial centre of Lagos. Eko Atlantic City is an ambitious response to the erosion problem. Set to rise out of the sea on 1,000 hectares of reclaimed land, it aims not only protect the fragile coast from further erosion, but to alleviate the crowded, traffic-congested conditions in Lagos.

The city is expected to generate more than 150,000 new jobs and aims to attract visitors from all over the world

Royal Haskoning has has developed the urban and transport masterplan, infrastructure design and the social and environmental impact assessment – as well as being responsible for overall project management.

Consultation has been important throughout producing the EIA, added Mr Heijboer. “They started during the scoping phase with meetings with the Federal Ministry of the Environment (FME), the Lagos State Ministry of the Environment and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA). Following these sessions, consultations were expanded to cover a wider range of stakeholders and local community leaders. Consultation and liaison with relevant parties will continue.”

On the back of this work, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of the Environment gave EIA approval for Eko Atlantic reclamation works and sea wall protection in combination with established procedures for ongoing compliance.

The building of the sea defence system is already under way. Designed by Royal Haskoning, the new sea wall will stretch for more than eight kilometres to form an effective barrier that dispels the force of the waves to protect not only Eko Atlantic, but the whole of the Atlantic coastline off Victoria Island and Lagos. To date an area of more than three million square metres of land has been reclaimed.