Menace of Soil Erosion on Urban Structures in Ikare-Akoko, Ondo State

Ikare-Akoko is a settlement surrounded by hills. The landscape therefore influences erosive activities such that the lower lying region of this settlement is always at the mercy of soil erosion. This research therefore examined the menace of soil erosion on urban structures with special focus on Ikare-Akoko, Ondo State. Field observation and field survey methods were adopted to generate the needed data for this study. Random balloting method without replacement was used to sample five streets from each of the five paramount quarters of the study area and thereafter, systemic sampling method at an interval of four houses was used to sample twenty houses in each of the sampled twenty five streets and purposive sampling method was used to sampled five hundred house hold heads that were finally administered questionnaire for this study. The subjective notions of the respondents were converted to objective notions using 3-points Likert scale of ?To no extent? (1) ?To a little extent? (2) and ?To a large extent? (3) while the Mean Weight Value (MWV) for each response and the General Mean Weight Value (GMWV) were both calculated and used to determine the major acceptable variable (s).Thereafter, Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Students t-test Statistical Analyses were used at p = 0.05 to determine the relationship and significance of relationship between the variables in each of the stated hypotheses. The study revealed that paved roads and unpaved roads, building foundations and areas adjourning buildings are the areas prone to erosion in the study area while areas along the foot of Hill and or slopes are not because these areas are mostly covered by buildings. At p= 0.05, factors encouraging erosion in the study area are: poor design of buildings and roads; construction of roads and buildings along slopes and hilly areas and absence and or narrowness of drains to accommodate runoff. With a significant but high positive correlation of 0.993, usage of inferior materials to construct and pave drains induces or encourages urban soil erosion on road drains to the tune of 98.45% in the study area while usage of inferior materials to construct buildings with a high positive correlations of 0.998induces/ encourages soil erosion on buildings to the tune of 97.64% in the study area. The resultant menace of erosion in the study area are; blockage of roads, washing away of road drains, traffic congestions, accidents, exposure of housing foundations, sagging of building walls and collapse of buildings. In order to mitigate the menace of soil erosion in the study area, this study recommends; good design and usage of quality materials for the construction of roads and building of buildings and drains. Similarly, in the study area annual clearance of drainages should be done before the onset of rain while periodical clearance of drainagess should always be done during the raining season every year.