Lagos’ exposure to flooding and extreme heat is creating growing risks for households whose livelihoods depend on outdoor work, informal employment, agriculture, fisheries and other climate-sensitive activities.

The PALM TREEs project shows that livelihood vulnerability is intensified by limited income diversification and unstable household incomes. Informal or casual employment was the leading reported livelihood category, accounting for at least 33.4% of respondents, followed by wage or salaried employment at 21%. Importantly, 75.5% of respondents worked outdoors, exposing a large proportion of the population to heat stress and other weather-related risks. At household level, 91.3% had only one source of income, while 49.4% reported relatively unstable or unreliable income and a further 40.4% reported very unstable or unreliable income. The heat-stress evidence reinforces this vulnerability. The PALM-TREEs analysis found generally high heat stress across Lagos, with no study location recording heat stress below 35°C. March had the highest average Humidex, while the annual cycle was estimated at a minimum of 360 days of some discomfort, 120 days of great discomfort, and six days of dangerous heat stress. Approximately 95% of weather-diary participants reported feeling hot during February and early March. Flooding creates another major livelihood shock. The PALM-TREEs study identifies displacement, property loss, livelihood loss, and health risks among the multidimensional consequences of flooding. The implications are particularly significant for households with limited financial buffers. The study found that 63.7% of households spend all or more than half of their income on household needs. A flood, heat episode, or disruption to an outdoor livelihood can therefore have immediate consequences for food consumption and household welfare.

The PALM-TREEs project identifies three particularly relevant adaptation pathways: support for urban agriculture and home gardens; support for women in fishing communities; and training/capacity building for alternative livelihoods and Improved nutrition for vulnerable women and men. The policy priority should therefore be to move from short-term coping to livelihood resilience, combining income diversification, climate-smart agriculture, support for fishing communities, protection of outdoor workers, improved access to climate information, and stronger food-security measure