How could hydro-climatic conditions evolve in the long term in West Africa? The case study of the Bani River catchment

This paper assesses the future variability of water resources in the long term over a large Sudano-Sahelian catchment in West Africa. Flow simulations were performed with a daily conceptual model. The climate models HadCM3 and MPI-M (based on SRES-A2) were used to provide future climate scenarios
over the catchment. Outputs from these models were used to generate daily rainfall and temperature series for the 21st century according to: (i) application of the unbias and delta methods, and (ii) spatial and temporal downscaling. A temperature-based formula was used to calculate present and future potential
evapotranspiration (PE). The daily rainfall and PE series were introduced into the calibrated and validated hydrological model to simulate future discharge. The model correctly reproduces the observed discharge at the basin outlet with the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency criterion over 0.89, and the volume error close to null over 1952–2000. With regard to future climate, the results show clear trends of reduced rainfall with a continuing increase in PE over the catchment. This suggests that the catchment discharge could fall in the long term to the same levels as those observed during the severe drought of the 1980s.