Investigation of Population and Urban Warming of Minna City and Environs: Implication for Sustainable Human Health
Rise in population, industrialization and urbanization have intensified health risks resulting to heat stress, respiratory diseases and vector-borne illnesses. Thus, this study has investigated population and urban warming of Minna city and environs for sustainable human health. The study utilized thermometer instrument to generate air temperatures from both rural and urban land uses on daily and weekly basis from January to December at three different times of morning (7-8am), afternoon (12-1pm) and evening (4-5pm) in the year 2024. The heat index was derived when air temperature and dew point temperatures of the locations were corresponded in the heat index chart or data logger calculator. A mathematical model was utilized to forecast the urban warming based on population data from the National Population Census (NPC) projected from 2024 to 2050. The results revealed that from 2024 to 2050, Minna town and environs had mean urban warming of 4.20C. Whereas the population of 2022 recorded 315,355 people and urban warming of 4.0 ̊C. When projected to 2026, the population revealed 361,805 dwellers and showed urban warming of 4.1oC; 2035 had population of 493,098 (4.2oC), 2043 had projected pollution of 671,804 (4.3oC) respectively. Also, 39.3% of the study area was within heat index caution level (27-32°C), 48.8% (32-41°C) under extreme caution level, 19.7% (41-54°C) under danger level and 1.2% (> 54oC) was under extreme danger threshold, indicating that heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke were possible. The study has among others recommended urban greening and tree planting as the management framework to cushion the effects of urban warming in Minna city, Niger State, Nigeria.
Keywords: Environs, Health, Population, Sustainability, Urban, Warming
