Hydrological response patterns of some third order streams on the Basement Complex of southwestern Nigeria

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Abstract
The hydrological response patterns of some third order rivers in southwestern Nigeria are described in terms of regime, discharge variability and recession of flow from peak discharge in the rainy season to the lowest discharge in the dry season. The maximum and minimum discharges of the rivers coincide with the rainy and dry seasons respectively. Most of the rivers exhibit erratic flow with quick responses to storms and storm water abating quickly, while some have a very low groundwater contribution to streamflow, a phenomenon which accounted for their drying up for considerable periods in the year. The variability indices of discharge of the rivers range from 0.25 to 2.12 while the recession constants range from 0.64 to 0.98. The variability indices are much higher than those of basins of similar size reported from other studies. Three types of rivers are recognizable on the basis of their hydrological response patterns. It is observed that the nature of the surficial and solid geology has a greater influence on discharge characteristics than other factors such as depth of regolith and rainfall.

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