Abstract
Climate variability causes the hydroological system to be dynamic on a range of time scales. Putting strain on the system in the past through flood and drought situations. The effects of current climate variability may be exacerbated by anthropogenic global warming. The first attempt was to validate 16 satellite-based precipitation products (SPPs) comprising satellite, gauge and reanalysis datasets. The datasets were validated with the precipitation data from 11-gauge reference stations across Nigeria from 2000–2012. This became important after it was discovered that accurate and timely precipitation data for the study area was lacking. The Kling–Gupta efficiency (KGE) was used to test the product for correlation, bias and variability. The results revealed that the substantial SPP reliability varies spatially and temporally. It was discovered that all the SPPs performed better over part of central Nigeria during the dry season. When the real-time and adjusted satellite-based products were compared, the results showed that the adjusted products had a better KGE score. The Assessment also showed that the reliability of integrated multi-satellite retrievals for Global Precipitation Mission (IMERG) products was consistent with that of their predecessor Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) multi-satellite precipitation analysis (TMPA). Finally, the best overall scores were obtained from multi-source weighted-ensemble precipitation (MSWEP) v.2.2 and IMERG-F v.6. Both products are therefore suggested for further hydrological studies.Secondly, the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standard Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) were used to evaluate the drought situation across Nigeria between 1981-2019 to determine the strength and pattern of drought in the study area. SPI evaluates drought based solely on precipitation. SPEI, in contrast to SPI, considers both temperature and precipitation, partially accounting for the effects of global warming and climate change. The Assessment of the level of agreement between SPI and SPEI at various timescales, i.e. (3,6 and 12 months), revealed a high correlation of r=0.94. The Assessment revealed that there were intense drought episodes between 1982 to 1984. Several drought types were present across the study area and in all the timescales. The highest intensity was determined to have occurred in 1983. However, the last extreme drought event was determined in 2016. As a result, it was determined that the frequency of severe and extreme drought has recently reduced. However, the frequency of moderate droughts persists, especially at the 3-months timescales. According to the results of this study, there is generally a satisfactory agreement between SPI and SPEI ratings in the study area. Thirdly, the climatic influence on evapotranspiration (ET), a critical climate indicator in studying climate change due to its contribution to the hydrologic cycle and the energy balance, was assessed. The Assessment was to reveal the influence of climatic variables such as temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, and wind against evapotranspiration changes to determine their impacts on ET across Nigeria using the Mann–Kendall (MK) trend test estimator for trend detection. The MK results showed that solar radiation and temperature had more influence on the ET of the study area in terms of their correlation and magnitude.In conclusion, natural climate change is more prevalent despite anthropogenic activities’ large expanse of land use change. Solar radiation and temperature are the prominent factors exacerbating evapotranspiration in the study area. Additionally, the study area’s limited precipitation duration experience in the Sahel and Sudan Savannah ecological region aggravates hydroecological degradation.