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Establishing the statistical characteristics of a hydrological data for the purposes of decision making in water resource planning and management is only justifiable if the data has the right attributes. This requires that the data being analysed are consistent, free of trend and being part of a stochastic process whose random characteristics is described by an appropriate distribution hypothesis. The study used some statistical applications to establish the runoff time-series characteristics of the three river sites of the Niger River basin. The results showed good attributes for all three river sites, except that Jidere River´s data exhibited inconsistency. The presence of trend was also established for all three river sites. Apart from Jidere River which was modelled based on 3-parameter lognormal, the other two river sites were modelled based on normal distribution probability. The presence of trend and other attributes require that a more stochastic modelling process be carried out. However the results established gives reference for water resource planning and management.

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The author is a lecturer of Bolgatanga Polytechnic. Lecturing in Agricultural Engineering and Civil Engineering Departments, with special interest in water resource management. Holds an MSc in Water Resources Engineering management, from the University of Glasgow and a BSc in Agricultural Technology, from the University for Development Studies.

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