Annual hydrological report of the Niger Basin year 2019/2020 Print
Monday, 06 July 2020 19:34

The Niger River has its source from the Fouta-Djalon Plateau more than 1000m altitude in Guinea and successively flows through Mali, Niger, Benin and Nigeria where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean after a span of around 4200 km. It is the third longest river in Africa (after the Nile and the Congo), the 14th in the world and the 9th by its drainage basin (2,170,500 km2). The active watershed covers an area of approximately 1,500,000 km2 shared by the nine (9) countries within the Niger Basin Authority catchments: Benin (2%), Burkina Faso (4%), Cameroon (4%), CĂ´te d'Ivoire (1%), Guinea (6%), Mali (26%), Niger (23%), Nigeria (33%) and Chad (1%). The River Benue which rises from Adamawa Plateau, Cameroon, to join the main course of River Niger at Lokoja in Nigeria, this is one of its most important tributaries.
The hydrological year of the River Niger starts from June 1st of a year to May 31st of the following year. The annual assessment of the River Niger flow in hydrological year 2019/2020 analyzes the flow situation at designated stations of the different sub-basins: Koulikoro (Mali) for Upper Niger, Diré (Mali) for the Inner Delta; Niamey (Niger) for Middle Niger and Lokoja (Nigeria) for Lower Niger.
The monitoring of River Niger flow during the hydrological year 2019/2020 was carried out under the framework of the activities of the Niger Basin Observatory from 113 hydrometric stations belonging to the hydrological observation networks of National Hydrological Services (NHS) of NBA’s  nine (9) member countries. These stations were equipped with gauge scales, some of which are associated with Satlink-type data collection platforms (PCD) (data transmission by satellite) or electronic Liminigraphs (transmission by GSM). All these hydrometric stations have an gauge reader who takes reading on a daily basis and monitors the equipment.
The databases of the NHSs and the Executive Secretariat of the NBA are managed by HYDROMET software to facilitate the exchange of data. The data received were duly analyzed and stored in the hydrometric database of the NBA Executive Secretariat.

Download the Annual hydrological report