Impact of climate change on the stream-flow of Ala River, Akure, Nigeria

Climate change is one of the notable changes experienced around the world today and this is as a result of Global warming. The environmental impact of climate change, especially in densely populated developing countries such as Nigeria cannot be overlooked without seeking to provide useful information to help avert the consequences arising from it. Therefore, the aim of this research is to simulate the effect of climate change on the stream-flow of Ala River, Akure, Nigeria and this aim is achieved by projecting future rainfall due to climate change and simulating a hydrologic model of the river. Precipitation change experienced in the world climate system was considered and projection of precipitation for Ala, Akure was done by statistically downscaling General Circulation Model (GCM) under the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.0) climate scenario. The projected climate change alongside other hydrologic parameters was input into Hydrologic Engineering Centre-Hydrologic Modeling System (HEC-HMS) version 4.2 to simulate a hydrologic model so as to achieve the peak discharges at a different cross-section of the river reach. The peak discharges obtained for the Ala River basin indicate a continuous increase of the runoff generated as a result of an increase in precipitation as the years progresses resulting from a change in the climate system.