Socio-economic baseline for oil-impacted communities in Ogoniland: towards a restoration framework in Niger Delta, Nigeria.

This study documents the socio-economic baselines in selected oil-impacted communities prior to the commencement of the Ogoni clean-up and restoration project. Adopting mixed approach consisting of semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs), key informant interviews (KIIs), and household surveys, we surveyed the pre-remediation socio-economic conditions in the Ogoniland communities between July 2018 and March 2019. Results indicated that almost all respondents (99.6%) agreed that the smell of petroleum products or crude oil was evident in the air they breathed even as there were visible black particles (soot) in the respondents' nostrils, on their clothes, and in water. The respondents described the ambient air as smoky and choked with an offensive smell. The household waters were smelly, brownish, or oily, and most respondents (76%) cannot afford to treat their water. Forty-two percent of the respondents who relied on fishing and farming for a living sought for alternative means of subsistence and acknowledged that oil pollution caused stunted growth and low crop yield. The majority of respondents (91%) reported falling fish catches, while the fish caught smell and taste of oil, lowering their market value and posing a potential health risk to consumers. It is evident that oil pollution has impacted the socio-ecological values and sustainable livelihood in Ogoniland. This study provides baseline data for monitoring post-remediation socio-economic improvements in Ogoniland. It also highlights areas of urgent intervention to improve livelihood, and access to basic amenities (e.g., potable drinking water), waste management infrastructure, and statutory policy changes for sustainable development in Ogoniland.

Persistent organic pollutants and heavy metals in Ghanaian environment: a systematic review of food safety implications.

Advances in industrial and technological innovations have led to significant socio-economic benefits, but with overwhelming negative impacts on the environment. These impacts include the infiltration of organic contaminants into soil, water, and air, posing a threat to the environment and public health. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), heavy metals, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are increasingly released as waste, endangering the environment. In countries like Ghana, where regulations are weakly enforced, industrial waste is released uncontrollably, posing threats to public health, environmental integrity, and food systems. This study systematically evaluated existing literature on PBDEs, heavy metals, PAHs, and organic contaminant exposure in Ghana and proposes a roadmap for achieving food safety and protecting the environment and human health. The research identified high mobility of specific heavy metals and risks associated with PBDEs and PAHs in sediments, dumpsites, and various food items. Unregulated dumping of electronic waste with PBDEs raised environmental concerns. An integrated approach is needed to address the multifaceted impact of organic pollutants on public health and ecosystems. Urgent implementation of effective environmental management strategies and regulatory measures is crucial. The study proposed short- to mid-term priorities emphasising the need to foster collaboration and implementing global measures. The mid- to long-term strategy includes a national information surveillance system, local monitoring capacity development, and integrating land contamination controls with food safety legislation. These measures would mitigate risks, ensure sustainable practices, and improve overall food safety management in Ghana, serving as a model for regions facing similar challenges with diverse pollutants.

Mining from the pipeline: Artisanal oil refining as a consequence of failed CSR policies in the Niger Delta.

Oil production in the Niger Delta first attained global prominence after the 1995 hangings of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogonis. In the face of horrible publicity and credible allegations that international oil companies were complicit in systematic human rights violations against local host communities, corporate social responsibility (CSR) was embraced. CSR in the Nigerian oil industry has evolved from non-existent to limited community development programs to today's Global Memorandum of Understanding model. Yet, concomitant with CSR's growth has been a devastating increase in artisanal oil refining or "bunkering." In this article, we do not focus on industrial scale bunkering, which clearly requires high-level political support. Instead, we focus on the growth of small-scale artisanal refining in the rural Niger Delta. We situate this sector's growth in failed government and CSR policies, highlight its devastating environmental impacts, and advocate a shift away from flawed and limited CSR to legal and regulated modular refineries that, with fewer negative developmental and environmental externalities, could serve as a vital source of job creation and wealth generation.

Inclusive Environmental Decision-making in a Developing Nation: Insights from the Ogoni Remediation Project, Niger Delta, Nigeria.

Greater involvement of women is globally believed to enhance environmental management outcomes. Despite being disproportionately affected by environmental degradation primarily caused by oil spills in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, women in the region are often excluded in environmental decision-making processes. Women involved in farming and fishing face increased vulnerability to contaminated land, food insecurity and conflicts driven by environmental degradation. Using a mixed approach, women, lawmakers, policymakers, regulators, civil society organizations, environmental management practitioners, and government agents responsible for environmental remediation were engaged through interviews, focus group discussions and questionnaires to examine women's inclusion in environmental decision-making and governance in the Ogoni contaminated land remediation project in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The results indicate that lack of trust and confidence in drivers of the environmental decision-making process could affect women's participation and involvement in environmental management. Although cultural beliefs and practices impede the participation of women in the region, their actual participation does not independently translate into inclusion in environmental decision-making due to limited capacity, confidence and trust in the process. Creating platforms for capacity building, developing gender policy, adapting appropriate communication strategies, initiating women networks and strengthening social cohesion could enhance women involvement in environmental decision-making in regions with similar cultural context to the Niger Delta region.

Risk assessment of sediment PAH, BTEX, and emerging contaminants in Chanomi Creek Niger Delta, Nigeria.

This study assessed the levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX), and emerging contaminants in Chanomi Creek. Sediment samples were collected between March 2019 and July 2020 to evaluate the concentrations of PAH, BTEX, and emerging contaminants using GC-MS and GC-FID with Headspace extraction. Results indicated mean PAH concentrations were 22.691 ± 15.09 µg/kg. The highest individual PAH concentrations were fluorene (7.085 µg/kg), naphthalene (4.517 µg/kg), and phenanthrene (3.081 µg/kg). Carbazole (0.828 µg/kg) was discovered as a novel environmental toxin with dioxin-like toxicity and widespread prevalence in sediments. The most common congener (25%) was ethylbenzene, followed by toluene and ortho- and meta-xylene (21%) and benzene (13%). The analysis of diagnostic ratios revealed that the main factors responsible for the presence of PAHs in the study area are the residential use of firewood, emissions from industrial activities, bush burning, and petroleum slicks. The risk assessment indicated that most PAHs exceeded the permissible risk quotient values, suggesting a moderate to high ecological risk. However, cutaneous exposure to PAHs and BTEX was found to have minimal impact on human health, with no significant hazards identified in adults and children. Nevertheless, the study revealed low cancer risks associated with PAH and BTEX compounds for both age groups. The continued discharge of PAHs and BTEX compounds into Chanomi Creek could have significant long-term negative effects on human and aquatic health. Thus, contamination risk awareness programs and the development of stringent contextual thresholds for identified contaminants could enhance environmental and public health protection.

Challenges and opportunities for low-carbon remediation in the Niger Delta: Towards sustainable environmental management.

There is increasing demand for low-carbon remediation strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting sustainable development in the management of environmental contamination. This trend is within the broader context of sustainable remediation strategies that balance environmental, economic, and social aspects. This article critically reviewed existing literature to evaluate and compare various low-carbon remediation methods, such as bioremediation, phytoremediation, in situ chemical oxidation, soil vapour extraction, and electrokinetic remediation, to identify suitable techniques for the remediation of oil-contaminated sites in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. We analysed the UK sustainable remediation frameworks (SuRF-UK) to glean lessons for the Nigerian context. Our findings indicate that bioremediation and phytoremediation are particularly promising low-carbon remediation technologies for the Niger Delta region due to their cost-effectiveness and adaptability to local conditions. We proposed a framework that deeply considers opportunities for achieving multiple goals including effective remediation and limited greenhouse gas emissions while returning net social and economic benefit to local communities. The proposed framework will help decision makers to implement effective remediation technologies that meet sustainability indices, integrates emissions considerations return net environmental benefit to local communities. There is a need for policymakers to establish and enforce policies and regulations that support sustainable remediation practises, build the capacity of stakeholders, invest in research and development, and promote collaboration among stakeholders to create a regulatory environment that supports sustainable remediation practises and promotes environmental sustainability in the region. This study provides insights for achieving low-carbon remediation in regions addressing land contamination by different contaminants and facilitates the adoption of remediation technologies that consider contextual socio-economic and environmental indices for sustainable development.

Evaluation of human health and ecological risk of heavy metals in water, sediment and shellfishes in typical artisanal oil mining areas of Nigeria.

Heavy metal contamination in water and sediment is a serious concern in nations that depend heavily on natural resources such as Nigeria. In most coastal communities around oil mining areas in Nigeria, drinking water quality, staple food, and livelihoods are primarily dependent on ecological systems and marine resources (e.g., fish). Thus, humans and other receptors are exposed to heavy metal risks through ingestion and dermal contact. This research evaluated the potential ecological risks of heavy metals including Cadmium (Cd), Chromium (Cr), Nickel (Ni), and Lead (Pb) in water, sediments, and shellfishes (Callinectes amnicola, Uca tangeri, Tympanotonus fuscatus, Peneaus monodon) along the Opuroama Creek in Niger Delta, Nigeria. The concentrations of heavy metals were measured in three stations using the Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer and their relative ecological (geo-accumulation index and contamination factor) and human health risk (hazard index and hazard quotient) analysed. The toxicity response indices of the heavy metals indicate that the sediments pose significant ecological risk particularly with Cd. None of the three exposure pathways to heavy metals in the shellfish muscles and age groups pose a non-carcinogenic risk. Total Cancer Risk values for Cd and Cr exceeded the acceptable range (10-6 to 10-4) established by USEPA in children and adults, raising concerns of potential cancer risks following exposure to these metals in the area. This established a significant possibility of heavy metal risks to public health and marine organisms. The study recommends conducting in-depth health analysis and reducing oil spills while providing sustainable livelihoods to the local population.

Prospects of emerging PAH sources and remediation technologies: insights from Africa.

Remediation of polluted environmental media is critical to realization of the goals of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (UNDER) project. Many natural-resource dependent economies in Africa are characterized by numerous contaminated sites resulting from conventional and artisanal natural-resource mining. Alongside these extractive activities, there are refining, processing, and power plant operations, agriculture, urban, and infrastructure developments that contribute to increased discharges of toxins into the environment, particularly polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are carcinogenic in nature. As a result, human and environmental receptors (i.e., air, water, soil, and biota) face increasing risk of exposure to higher concentrations of PAH. Evidence exists of widespread PAH contamination and in some instances where corrective action has been taken, residual contaminant levels exceeding regulatory thresholds remain in the environment due to the use of inappropriate and unsustainable remedial methods. Considering the long-term harmful effects of PAH on human and ecosystem health, land use, and the complexity of Africa's environmental deterioration, it is essential to explore remediation strategies that benefit both the environment and the economy. This review examined the status, opportunities, and challenges related to the application of emerging green technologies to remediate PAH-contaminated sites in five African countries (South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Egypt, and Kenya). This paper concludes that bioremediation presents a sustainable option, considering its low net emissions and environmental footprints, and its low economic cost to Africa's poor communities and overburdened economy. However, an integration of biological and physico-chemical approaches could address various compounds and concentrations of PAH contamination.

Bioaugmentation as a green technology for hydrocarbon pollution remediation. Problems and prospects.

Environmental pollution mitigation measure involving bioremediation technology is a sustainable intervention for a greener ecosystem biorecovery, especially the obnoxious hydrocarbons, xenobiotics, and other environmental pollutants induced by anthropogenic stressors. Several successful case studies have provided evidence to this paradigm including the putative adoption that the technology is eco-friendly, cost-effective, and shows a high tendency for total contaminants mineralization into innocuous bye-products. The present review reports advances in bioremediation, types, and strategies conventionally adopted in contaminant clean-up. It identified that natural attenuation and biostimulation are faced with notable limitations including the poor remedial outcome under the natural attenuation system and the residual contamination occasion following a biostimulation operation. It remarks that the use of genetically engineered microorganisms shows a potentially promising insight as a prudent remedial approach but is currently challenged by few ethical restrictions and the rural unavailability of the technology. It underscores that bioaugmentation, particularly the use of high cell density assemblages referred to as microbial consortia possess promising remedial prospects thus offers a more sustainable environmental security. The authors, therefore, recommend bioaugmentation for large scale contaminated sites in regions where environmental degradation is commonplace.

Recovery of infauna macrobenthic invertebrates in oil-polluted tropical soft-bottom tidal flats: 7 years post spill.

Coastal oil spills constitute significant threat to biotic energy distribution, and biodiversity integrity amongst others. This study monitored the recovery of low-intertidal, soft-bottom infauna macrobenthic invertebrates in Bodo Creek intermittently over a 7-year period post oil spill. Samples were taken twice a month (spring and neap low tides) for 6 months (September 2015-February 2016) at sites previously studied (pre-spill baseline studies, 3-year and 5-year post-spill studies) for the effects of oil pollution using the same sampling methods used during initial studies of the same area. Comparatively, the initial studies reported Polychaeta as the dominant class against the dominant Crustacea reported in this 7-year post-spill study, indicating a change in the community structure of the study area. Infauna macro-invertebrate communities recorded showed an improvement (that is, increased species richness and number of individuals) over the initial 3-year and 5-year post-spill studies. However, relating the results to the initial baseline pre-spill studies, an annual average of 9.7% recovery rate was observed. Analysis of results showed that the total hydrocarbon content (THC) of the sediment remained high (90.08-12,184 mg/kg) but was markedly lower than levels observed during the initial post-spill study (6422-7186 mg/kg). Tidal flushing and biodegradation processes were deemed responsible for the reduction in THC. This study provides a rare dataset that describes the effects of oil pollution on a previously near-pristine estuarine environment in the tropics.

Status, progress and challenges of phytoremediation - An African scenario.

Environmental pollution occasioned by artisanal activities and technical failures at exploration sites has affected mostly oil producing and other mineral resources mining regions in developed and developing nations. As conventional techniques of remediation seem to be progressively unreliable and inefficient, contaminated land management experts have adopted a plant-based technology described as 'phytoremediation' for effective detoxification and removal of contaminants in substrate environmental media (soil and sediment). This technique, has gained public acceptance because of its aesthetic, eco-friendly, solar energy driven and low cost attributes. With complexity of environmental pollution in Africa, identification of appropriate remediation approach that deliver net environmental benefit and economic profit to the society is vital, while also focusing on the exploitation of plants genetic tools for more clarity on phyto tolerance, uptake and translocation of pollutants. In this article, we reviewed the status, progress and challenges of phytoremediation in selected African countries (South Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, Egypt and Ghana), the ecological impact of the pollutants, phytoremediation strategies and the possible plants of choice. Besides highlighting the support roles played by soil fauna and flora, the fate of harvested biomass/dieback and its future prospects are also discussed. We further explored the factors challenging phytoremediation progress in Africa, amidst its promising potentials and applicability for sustainable ecosystem management paradigm.

Remediation of contaminated lands in the Niger Delta, Nigeria: Prospects and challenges.

Contamination of the total environment (air, soil, water and biota) by crude oil has become a paramount interest in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Studies have revealed variable impacts of oil toxicity on the environment and exposed populations. The revelation gained much international attention in 2011 with the release of Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). This has up scaled local and international pressures for urgent clean-up and restoration of degraded bio-resource rich environments of the Niger Delta, starting from Ogoniland. Previous remediation attempts in the area had failed due to erroneous operational conclusions (such as conclusions by oil industry operators that the Niger Delta soil is covered by a layer of clay and as such oil percolation remains within the top soil and makes remediation by enhanced natural attenuation (RENA) suitable for the region) and the adoption of incompatible and ineffective approaches (i.e. RENA) for the complex and dynamic environments. Perennial conflicts, poor regulatory oversights and incoherent standards are also challenges. Following UNEP recommendations, the Federal Government of Nigeria recently commissioned the clean-up and remediation of Ogoniland project; it would be novel and trend setting. While UNEP outlined some measures of contaminated land remediation, no specific approach was identified to be most effective for the Niger Delta region. Resolving the technical dilemma and identified social impediments is the key success driver of the above project. In this paper, we reviewed the socio-economic and ecological impacts of contaminated land in the Niger Delta region and the global state-of-the-art remediation approaches. We use coastal environment clean-up case studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of bioremediation (sometimes in combination with other technologies) for remediating most of the polluted sites in the Niger Delta. Bioremediation should primarily be the preferred option considering its low greenhouse gas and environmental footprints, and low-cost burden on the weak and overstretched economy of Nigeria.

A multi-attribute methodology for the prioritisation of oil contaminated sites in the Niger Delta.

The Ogoniland region of the Niger Delta contains a vast number of sites contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons that originated from Nigeria's active oil sector. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reported on this widespread contamination in 2011, however, wide-scale action to clean-up these sites has yet to be initiated. A challenge for decision makers responsible for the clean-up of these sites has been the prioritisation of sites to enable appropriate allocation of scarce resources. In this study, a risk-based multi-criteria decision analysis framework was used to prioritise high-risk sites contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons in the Ogoniland region of Nigeria. The prioritisation method used a set of risk-based attributes that took into account chemical and ecological impacts, as well as socio-economic impacts, providing a holistic assessment of the risk. Data for the analysis was taken from the UNEP Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland, where over 110 communities were assessed for oil-contamination. Results from our prioritisation show that the highest-ranking sites were not necessarily the sites with the highest observed level of hydrocarbon contamination. This differentiation was due to our use of proximity as a surrogate measure for likelihood of exposure. Composite measures of risk provide a more robust assessment, and can enrich discussions about risk management and the allocation of resources for the clean-up of affected sites.

Working towards an integrated land contamination management framework for Nigeria.

Over the past five decades, Nigeria has developed a number of contaminated land legislations to address the damage caused primarily by oil and gas exploitation activities. Within these legislations exists elements of risk assessment and risk-based corrective action. Despite this progress, we argue that contaminated land management approaches in Nigeria need further development to be able to integrate new scientific information, and to address environmental, economic, and social values. By comparison, advanced contaminated land regimes in the United Kingdom (UK), the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States of America (USA) apply a number of integrative approaches (e.g. sustainability appraisal, liability regime, funding mechanisms, technology demonstration) that enable them to meet the environmental, economic, and social needs of their populations. In comparison, Nigerian governance lacks many of these mechanisms and management of contaminated land is ad hoc. In this paper we propose an integrated risk assessment framework for Nigeria that incorporates the principles of sustainability and stakeholder engagement into the decision-making processes for contaminated land risk assessment and risk management. The integrated approach relies on transparency to promote acceptance and build trust in institutions, and uses stakeholder engagement to address data deficiencies. We conclude this paper with a roadmap for how Nigeria might implement such an integrative approach into their existing contaminated land regulatory system, as well as identify a series of policy priorities that should be addressed.