Assessment of Water Availability and Demand in Goronyo Reservoir Sokoto, Nigeria

Abstract

Climatic parameters are subjected to variation due to atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, so it is essential to assess the water availability and demand under the climate variation in Goronyo reservoir since supply of water is one of the significant tasks in water resources management. In this study, estimation of available water, demand and unmet demand was simulated using Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) Software with the opinion of assessing the availability of the water for it use under climate change. Firstly, the climatic data was obtained and used to simulate the surface water situation with the model. Secondly, the data was projected based on the initial model output and compared with the existing (observed) data. The comparison involved calibration and validation with the recorded data of river flow. Thirdly, the hypothetical climate change Scenarios were applied to the model so as to know what is to be expected if climate changes. Thus, the model was used to analyse what happened to demand and water availability in the study area. The study found the demand and Unmet demand as the output of the model, and the result showed that the annual total demand for various uses from 2018 to 2070 is 7076.4 million cubic meters (MCM) and annual average of 133.4 million cubic meters (MCM). Meanwhile, the unmet demand ranges from annual total of 1157.5 million cubic meters to 1199.7 million cubic meters and annual average of 21.84 MCM to 22.64 MCM. From the result the highest unmet was recorded under the worst scenario i.e. scenario 9 with 1.2oC increase in temperature and 10% decrease in precipitation. In Conclusion, it was found that the demand in the area is 6 times higher in years to come i.e. 50 years from now and deficit is 61% increased.Keywords – Climate variation, Goronyo Reservoir, Water Demand and Unmet