Lagos demolitions destroy informal climate defences
Research in Lagos finds informal settlements have built vital flood defences like sand extraction and raised walkways.
In Lagos, Nigeria, residents of informal waterfront settlements are building their own defences against climate change-driven flooding, systems that also supply the wider city. Research by a climate social scientist, who spent four months observing 20 such settlements, found these communities have developed organised 'adaptation infrastructures' to manage water while meeting daily needs, but city demolitions are destroying them.
A city growing faster than its services
Lagos has exploded from roughly one million people in 1970 to an estimated 17 to 21 million today. Official housing, drainage, and water supply have not kept pace, leaving over 60% of residents in informal housing built without permits. The state government's ambition, described by a housing commissioner in 2016 as building 'the next Dubai', is visible in projects like Eko Atlantic, a high-end district protected by the 'Great Wall of Lagos' seawall. Researchers have documented that this wall has worsened erosion and flooding in the poorer communities left outside its protection.
Lived realities
The researcher's ethnographic work, involving observation and interviews, identified two key categories of community response: strategies for making homes and 'adaptation livelihoods' for making a living. Adaptation infrastructures include the routines, knowledge, and materials assembled to manage flooding. In the Ijora settlement, for instance, temporary plank bridges on bamboo supports have evolved into a permanent, raised network, rebuilt higher as water levels rise. Inside homes, residents use doorway barriers and floors raised with compacted plastic waste, bought from vendors and melted, to keep floodwaters out. 'The point,' one woman explained, 'is to stay home and keep life ordinary while the water is up.'
For livelihoods, climate adaptation provides jobs that serve both informal and formal neighbourhoods. Key activities observed include:
What demolition destroys
Demolition campaigns, which have cleared at least six settlements since July 2023, erase these working systems. The 2016 clearance of the Otodo Gbame fishing community, home to tens of thousands, destroyed bridges, shared wells, and informal electrical connections. Sand divers, fish smokers, and water sellers lost the shoreline, boreholes, and customer base essential to their work. The researcher concludes that 'clearing settlements in the name of protection actually makes people more vulnerable.'
Moving forward
In December 2025, bulldozers arrived in Makoko, Nigeria's largest informal settlement, displacing over 40,000 people according to the United Nations. Following condemnation, Lagos State suspended demolitions and announced a US$10 million plan to build a 'water city' in its place. The researcher argues that adaptation planning must start by inventorying what a settlement already has. Recording Makoko's existing water networks, waste routes, and raised walkways before finalising new designs could determine whether a project works or destroys key flood-management capacity built by residents.
