Integrating Solid Waste Management into Urban Flood Risk Reduction: A Resilience Framework for Lagos, Nigeria

Lawal Abdulkabir Olatoye

Abstract: This study examines how solid waste management influences urban flood risk in Lagos, Nigeria, and develops an integrated resilience framework connecting waste governance, drainage management, and flood-risk reduction. An integrative evidence synthesis and comparative case-study approach was used to assess peer-reviewed studies, institutional documents, policy materials, and recent reports concerning waste disposal, drainage obstruction, flood exposure, and government and community responses. Quantitative evidence was compared descriptively, while qualitative findings were synthesized thematically. The evidence identifies improper waste disposal and drainage obstruction as important contributors to flood exposure and indicates that existing responses remain constrained by gaps in waste collection, fragmented institutional coordination, infrastructure limitations, and behavioural factors. The proposed framework integrates preventive, inclusive, sustainable, and resilience-oriented actions across institutional, infrastructural, community, economic, and regulatory dimensions. Although the study relies mainly on heterogeneous secondary evidence, it demonstrates the value of treating waste collection, waste interception, informal-sector participation, and coordinated drainage governance as components of preventive flood resilience. The framework offers a policy-oriented approach that may also inform rapidly urbanizing coastal cities facing similar waste and flood challenges.

Keywords: solid waste management, flood-risk reduction, urban resilience, integrated governance, Lagos