Impact of Gafan Dam Construction and Its Adverse Socio-Economic Effects on Bunkure Local Government Area of Kano State

Human activities through large scale irrigation and dam construction significantly impinged on the ecology of the area. Measurements taken show that the dam is about 630m long, 9m high and has a head of water of 7.10m at the time of this study. It has been observed that the construction of Gafan dam consequently resulted to the impoundment of valuable land and created a serious problem to the inhabitants, approximately over 100,000 hectares was cleared for dam construction development. It was found that substantial flooding was evident in the downstream resulting in the drying-up of Fadama wetland, canal and valley side erosion leading to the eventual break down of Dan hassan–Kura road. Similarly, meadow and stems around the water course, were upischolar_mained due to the force of the raging flood. It has also been observed that the intense overflow from the reservoir were as deep as 2.5m. Moreover, measurement taken within the lake demonstrated an inundation of 1.5m in the surface and 2.6m in the narrower central spillway. However, the runoff, which was observed and believed to be not less than 3.6m deep had eroded a massive portion of the downstream resulting to soil losses and water, about 4.9 kg m year ^{– 1} was observed. Similarly, the observed sediment discharge was approximately 48%.