The Role of Landscape Trees and Other Greens in Enhancing Housing Users Comfort in Nigeria

Abstract

The practice of housing provision in Nigeria is generally devoid of proactive effort on landscaping as the concept of landscaping is often thought of as waste of money and time yet without any doubt, comfort in housing delivery is a crucial issue which in every way is dependent on landscaping . Many parameters both natural and man induced are often considered if housing provision is to satisfy the comfort yearning of the end users to some levels. One of the natural phenomenon that directly and indirectly impact on the end users’ comfort as far as housing is concerned is the air temperature. Nigeria generally is in the tropics and there are varying impacts of tropical traits that affect expected comfort. Some areas are excessively hot while others are moderately warm, even others have temperate weather especially those on highlands and plateaus. Actually the issue of high air temperature is not peculiar to Nigeria alone as some other countries in other part of the world have
temperature ranges doubling that of some hottest areas in Nigeria. This paper focuses on the excessively hot regions in Nigeria and what could be done to ameliorate the impact of it on housing provision to achieve comfort to some extent. Landscaping has been identified as one of the measures that could be adopted to moderate on air temperature if coordinately designed and applied within and around housing facilities. Four cities in Nigeria: Lokoja, Calabar, Makurdi and Maiduguri are sampled as the most hottest yet human beings live there but do not practically enjoy housing provision as expected in spite of the creative ability of housing designers hence this paper aims at what could be put in place to moderate on this harsh experience in order to enhance comfort to some extent. The methodology adopted is both primary and secondary sources. The primary approach was composed of site visits, observations, interviews and interactions with housing users. Secondary data
were also used. The study revealed that landscape elements when properly designed and applied is a means of reducing harsh impact of high air temperature in the tropics. The paper concluded that adopting landscaping elements coordinately especially planting of trees and shrubs for shades and introducing some other landscaping equipment around and within houses could go a long way in moderating air temperatures to some bearable extent.