GUEST EDITORIAL - SDG 14 - life below water: trend and trajectory in Nigeria

Abstract

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 14 is focused on the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources. Specifically, target 14.1 is aimed at preventing and significantly reducing marine pollution of all kinds in particular from land-based sources including marine debris and nutrient pollution. Aquatic ecosystems in Nigeria are diverse including freshwaters, brackish and coastal waters as well as marine ecosystems. They support a diversity of animal species which serve as food for man and support ecosystem functioning. Furthermore, these ecosystems provide significant services to man including transport, abstraction of water for domestic and industrial use, power generation, reservoir of hydrocarbon deposits which has been the backbone of the Nigerian economy for over five (5) decades (Akinlo et al., 2012), food security, among others. However, the pollution of these ecosystems has been reported by many researchers over the years and remains the subject of studies to date. Aquatic ecosystems such as those in the Niger Delta, Lagos lagoon, Ogun River, River Onne, Calabar River, among others have been reported to have been subjected to various anthropogenic influences from point and diffuse sources with consequent adverse impacts on water quality, aquatic biota, other wildlife, livestock and even humans (Sogbanmu et al., 2016; Ubiogoro and Adeyemo, 2017; Ibor et al., 2017, Adeyemo et al., 2019).