Availability of the current and future water resources in Equatorial Central Africa: case of the Nyong forest catchment in Cameroon

Abstract

To anticipate disasters (drought, floods, etc.) caused by environmental forcing and reduce their impacts on its fragile economy, sub-Saharan Africa needs a good knowledge of the availability of current water resources and reliable hydroclimatic forecasts. This study has as objective to quantify the availability of water resources in the Nyong basin and predict its future evolution . For this, the SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model was used. The performance of this model is satisfactory in calibration and validation, with R 2 , NSE and KGE greater than 0.64. Biases lower than -14% also attest to this good performance. In the investigated basin, infiltration (GW_RCH), evapotranspiration (ETP), runoff (SURQ) and water yield (WYLD) are greater in the East, probably due to more abundant rainfall in this part. The flows and sediment load (SED) are greater in the middle zone and in the Southwest of the basin, certainly because of the relief of this part, which corresponds to the valley floor. Two models (CCCma and REMO) predict a decline in water resources in this basin, and two others (HIRHAM5 and RCA4) the opposite. However, based on a statistical study carried out over the historical period (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005), the CCCma model seems the most reliable. It forecasts a drop in precipitation and runoff, which do not exceed -19% and -18%, respectively, whatever the emission scenario (RCP4.5 or RCP8.5). Climate variability (CV) is the only forcing whose impact is visible in the dynamics of current and future flows, due to the modest current and future changes observed in the evolution of land use and land cover (LULC). The results of this study could contribute to improving water resource management in the basin studied and the region.