Modelling the Hydrological Response of Komadougu-Yobe Area of the Lake Chad Basin to Climate Change

Abstract

This study was carried out to investigate the hydrological response of the Komadougu-Yobe basin to climate change using daily observed data and outputs from regional climate models. Analyses carried out in this study include (a) the spatiotemporal trends and correlation in daily hydrometeorological variable as well as climate extremes, (b) the quantification and segregation of the contributory effects of precipitation variability and human influences on the variations in river discharge, (c) the calibration of and conceptual hydrological model using six evolutionary optimization methods and three combined objective functions over the study area. Results from this study showed an increasing trend of climate extremes, temperature, precipitation and river discharge. The distribution of LULC also affected the volume of river discharge. However, the impact of human activities and precipitation variability on river discharge was seen to be equally shared in the basin. Furthermore, the applied model parameters’ optimization methods showed reasonable abilities to simulate runoff with a satisfactory level of accuracy towards more accurate representation of the river discharge in the basin in the context of climate change, climate extremes and water resources. Therefore, the attempts in this study to characterize areas in the river basin with the potential risk of climate extreme events will serve as a useful resource for assessments of the potential impacts of climate change on human, ecosystems, water resources.