Managing Nigeria’s Aquatic Resources

Ecosystem services are ecological goods and services that come from a healthy ecosystem, categorized into four broad groups: provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural. Nigeria’s aquatic resources have limited data, and available information on exploitation is dismal. This chapter gives an insight into the aquatic resources of Nigeria and their contribution to the economy. There are water, plants, fish, and other aquatic vertebrates resources that are used for food. Aquatic resources have contributed to the development of agriculture and tourism and provided basic and transitional materials for industries, shelter, and breeding sites for game birds and other avian migrants. Conservation practices recommended include rainwater harvesting, prevention of water pollution, use of gray water, and tree planting. Some efforts of Nigerian wetland conservation are policy based. Ecosystem services seem not to be organized in Nigeria in terms of valuation, measurement, exploitation, management, payment systems, conservation, and growth.