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Journal of Applied Sciences and Environmental Management
World Bank assisted National Agricultural Research Project (NARP) - University of Port Harcourt
ISSN: 1119-8362
Vol. 20, No. 3, 2016, pp. 760-768
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Bioline Code: ja16087
Full paper language: English
Document type: Research Article
Document available free of charge
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Journal of Applied Sciences and Environmental Management, Vol. 20, No. 3, 2016, pp. 760-768
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Estimating Stream Discharge of Aboine River Basin of Southeast Nigeria using Modified Thornthwaite Climatic Water Balance Model
EZEMONYE, M.N.; EMERIBE, C.N. & ANYADIKE, R. N.C.
Abstract
The study attempts to estimate the stream discharge of the Aboine river basin,
southeast Nigeria, using modified climatic water balance approach. Moisture deficit in the
basin generally begins from January and lasts up to April while utilization begins from October
up to December. The basin attains a field capacity from August to September and decreases in
moisture storage from October when more water is removed from the basin to meet plant water
needs. The value of the circularity ratio of 0.29 showed that the Aboine Basin will produce little
surface runoff. Results of bifurcation ratio, compactness coefficient, stream length and modeling
of inter-basin parameters showed that the Aboine drainage basin is basically a flat surface. This
will affect both the amount of water available from the basin for any water resources projects.
Such information also provides the basis for demonstrating the effects of environmental control
on the fluvial system and also for predicting the basin output variables. Surface runoff
contribution to discharge was computed as a residual of our modified climatic water balance
equation while groundwater flow contribution to discharge was determined from the separation
of water stage hydrograph available for the study area from 1984 to 1987, using the hydrograph
separation technique. Comparison of calculated discharge values using modified THWB
climatic water balance with stream discharge determined from water- stage showed significant
difference between computed stream discharge from water stage and discharge estimated from
our water balance model at 0.05 level of confidence. This suggests that our modified water
balance model if further improved maybe suitable for generating information on all the aspects
of the moisture relationship in the basin in the absent of measured stream flow data. © JASEM
Keywords
Stream discharge; basin morphometry; surface flow; groundwater flow; water resource
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