ID: 1999
Presenting Author: Christopher Eche
Session: 622 - “Science isn’t just for scientists”: IA and advancing technical literacy
Status: pending
This paper analyzes the potential of AI for tackling Nigeria's critical environmental, and proposes strategic pathways for integrating AI into the nation's environmental sustainability framework.
Environmental degradation in Nigeria manifested through deforestation, pollution, flooding, and biodiversity loss poses significant challenges to sustainable development. As global efforts shift toward data-driven environmental governance, AI offers transformative potential for monitoring, modeling, and managing environmental systems. This paper explores the opportunities, constraints, and strategies in harnessing AI for Environmental Sustainability in Nigeria. It displays how AI can enhance environmental decision-making, optimize resource utilization, and support national sustainability goals through major application areas like precision agriculture, air- and water-quality monitoring, renewable-energy optimization, waste management, and climate adaptation. AI integration in Nigeria faces systemic challenges such as poor data infrastructure, weak policy frameworks, limited technical expertise, funding constraints, and ethical concerns. To overcome these barriers, the study proposes strategic pathways encompassing robust governance structures, standardized data ecosystems, capacity-building programs, sustainable financing mechanisms, and participatory innovation ecosystems. It outlines cross-cutting operational recommendations assigning institutional responsibilities to key agencies. The paper concludes that mainstreaming AI into Nigeria’s environmental sustainability agenda demands coordinated policy action, interdisciplinary research, ethical oversight, and inclusive stakeholder engagement.
Dr. Christopher Oche Eche is an environmentalist with core interest in environmental nematology, climate change and an advocate for a safe planet.
Coauthor 1: Lami Nnamonu