CLIMATE VARIABILITY AND EXTREME EVENT, HYDROLOGY AND RESERVOIR MANAGEMENT, AGRICULTURE AND WATER IN NORTHERN NIGERIA PROGRESS REPORT SUBMITTED TO

The African Network of Centres of Excellence (ACEs) on Water Sciences Phase 2 (designated ACE Water 2) is aimed at fostering sustainable capacity development at scientific, technical and
institutional level in the water sector by carrying out high-end scientific research on water and related sectors in order to provide effective and educational support to governments in partnership with UNESCO and JRC. With this view, the Centre of Excellence (CoE) at National Water Resources Institute (NWRI), Kaduna has carried out a study on the issues bordering on Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem (WEFE) in the northern Nigeria part of the Niger River Basin (NRB), to review climate variability and extreme event, hydrology and reservoir management, agriculture and water issues. This report is the result of the literature studies carried out in the exploration of five major areas of WEFE in the northern part of Nigeria in the NRB.
The study area covered the Niger River Basin (NRB) in the northern part of Nigeria. The basin has an area of approximately 2.3 million sq km spreading over 10 countries. The Basin has its
largest part in Mali, Niger and Nigeria, each covering about 25% of the total basin area with approximately 100 million people dealing mainly with the traditional, low input, rainfed farming
ranging from nomadic pastoralism to small scale irrigated agriculture. The Basin is drained by River Niger of a length of approximately 4,200 km, joining its main tributary, the Benue River in
south-central Nigeria and flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Nigeria alone contains 28.3 percent (424,500 square kilometers) of the Basin area and more than half of her major rivers are in the
Niger River Basin. Almost 60 percent of Nigeria’s population, or about 67.6 million inhabitants, live in the Basin.