AN ASSESSMENT OF THE STATUS OF GULLY EROSION CONTROL MEASURES IN GOMBE METROPOLIS, GOMBE STATE, NIGERIA.

Abstract

The study assessed the current status of some of gully erosion sites in Gombe Metropolis using
some specific objectives which included identifying the length of the controlled and
uncontrolled gully erosion sites, identifying the type of control method used. Data for this study
were collected through both primary and secondary sources. the primary sources included
data collected from the gully sites on the gullies that either fully controlled, partially
controlled, or uncontrolled at all, coordinates of each of these gullies were taken from each
site for easy identification of gully location, information from relevant agencies such as state
ministry of environment, NEWMAP Gombe, and other published materials were used as
secondary data in the study. Tables were used to present the results of the study. The study
revealed that, engineering control method is the dominant gully erosion control measures in
the study area, the study further revealed that the total length of all the gullies under study was
62.64km, this represented about 3.9% of the total area covered by the study area. The length
of gully sections controlled out of the total partially controlled gullies at the time of the study
was 5.5km representing 8.9% of the total. On the other hand, the total length of gullies tagged
fully controlled in the area was 10.4km. This implies that the total length of all the gullies
sections fully controlled was 15.9km. This figure represented 25.33% out of the total gully
length. The study recommend the need to identify and adopt other effective alternative control
method in the study area in order to reduce cost of gully control. The study also recommend
the need for government to avoid abandoning control effort half way in order to avoid the
failure of the earlier controlled sections due to long neglect which as a result may leads to loss
of more resources.