Modelling the Effect of Variability of Temperature and Rainfall on Water Resources of Asa River Catchment, Nigeria
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Date
2018-09
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
U6 INITIATIVE FOR DEVELOPMENT
Abstract
The study of the effects of variability of temperature and rainfall on the quantity and quality of water resources
has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years, particularly at a regional and global scale. Therefore, this
research tends to evaluate the impacts of variability of climate change on the water resources of Asa river
catchment in Kwara State, Nigeria. Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) embedded in Geographical
Information System (GIS) environment was adopted to predict the streamflow and runoff of Asa River for a
period of 30 years (1986-2015). The predicted streamflow and runoff were subjected to three different statistical
analyses which include the Mann-Kendall, Regression trend and Reduction analysis. The statistical analyses
were carried out to determine the measures of central tendencies, measures of dispersion, skewness and the
nature of the trend in the studied parameters. The results showed that streamflow and precipitation (rainfall)
were observed to have exhibited negative trends, though none of the two parameters showed a significant
trend. This implies that the trend of the rainfall and stream-flow are slightly decreasing. Likewise, both maximum
and minimum temperature exhibited a significant positive trend which is an indication that the temperature of
the region may increase in the near future. These observations imply that climate change has started taken its
toll on the water resources of Asa river catchment in Kwara state, Nigeria.