Development - cooperation

Abstract

The E-Water tool has been initially developed in 2017 in the frame of Mékrou Basin Project, born from a collaboration between European Commission and African institutions as ABN and AGHRYMET. The E-Water tool was so identified as a valid operational system to be applied in the context of WEFE Senegal project. This imply a revision and an update of the working system in order to handle the increasing complexity and specificity of the WEFE Nexus approach. Indeed the new updated version of the tool, named e-NEXUS, should empower the capability to explicitly recognize water, energy, food and ecological systems as both interconnected and interdependent. This report gives a summary of the activities of the 1st year of the WEFE Senegal project aimed to the development of a Prototype of a Decision Support System for Environmental Monitoring through the detection of environmental trends and anomalies at the river basin level. The System was presented during the Workshop on Data and Models organized in Dakar in October 2018. During this workshop all partners presented models and data that are required for the development of the whole system. In this report a brief introduction to the whole DS system and the methodology of development is given. Then report is focused on the description of the Climate variability module that has been updated with data for Senegal river basin and also example of applications and analyses in the Senegal RB are described and summarized.

L’objectif principal de l’étude est de réaliser un inventaire « des données, des modèles, des systèmes et des infrastructures existants et disponibles auprès de l’OMVS et des partenaires des projets OMVS dans le bassin du fleuve Sénégal ». L’équipe de consultant s’est attelé à disposer du Shape file de l’emprise totale du bassin du Fleuve Sénégal par l’intermédiaire de la Cellule SIG de l’OMVS pour mieux circonscrire le champ d’étude.  L’objectif est de collecter, de lister et de rassembler (tout en les décrivant) les données disponibles sur le bassin versant concernant les secteurs EAU, ENERGIE et AGRICULTURE. Ces données ont été recueillies et mises au format lisible par un système d’information géographique (SIG). Le présent rapport fait la synthèse de la méthodologie adoptée, les données recueillies, les modèles recensés et les outils disponibles au sein de l’OMVS et ses partenaires.  
 

West Africa, particularly the Sudano-Sahelian zone, has experienced unprecedented climate variability in recent decades. Despite some periods of respite, the statistics do not really plead for a return to better climatic conditions, precisely rainfall. Beyond the structural aspect of this climate variability, many effects have been observed on socio-economic activities and also on socio-cultural practices. This situation has a dramatic impact on water resources and in particular on the hydrology of West African transboundary basins such as those of Senegal and Gambia.
The overall objective of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of climate variability and risks and their impacts on the water resources availability in transboundary watersheds in West Africa. It aims to create up-to-date knowledge bases for climate variability analysis and risk assessment as well as the search for sustainable solutions to overcome the environmental and societal vulnerability. In this perspective, the updating of the West African climate database and its extension to shared basins (Senegal and Gambia) should make it possible to carry out relevant analyses of climate variability and its impact on the environment and more particularly on the water resources availability.

West Africa, particularly the Sudano-Sahelian zone, has experienced unprecedented climate variability in recent decades. Despite some periods of respite, the statistics do not really plead
for a return to better climatic conditions, precisely rainfall. Beyond the structural aspect of this climate variability, many effects have been observed on socio-economic activities and also on
socio-cultural practices. This situation has a dramatic impact on water resources and in particular on the hydrology of West African transboundary basins such as those of Senegal and Gambia.

This inception report presents the project "Climate vulnerability and water resources variability in West Africa. Senegal and Gambia river basin cases studies ". It is part of the ACEWATER2 program and is under the umbrella of the Regional Atlas of Water Cooperation.
This report describes the background of the study, the objectives and scope of the work. The Senegal river basin (SRB) is one of the catchments selected by WANWATCE. The Gambia river basin (GRB) have been added by the UCAD’s team, due to their similarities and proximity. The team’s will is to do thorough job and then replicate it in the other basin accross West Africa.
The overall goal of this project is to contribute to better understanding of climate variability and its impacts on water resources availability in trans boundary watersheds of West Africa, particularly in Senegal and Gambia river basin. In the actual Africa’s environmental context, there is a need to understand and mainstream the climate variability and related economic vulnerability. The effects on water resources availability are a major challenge across West Africa and the Sahel zone. The development of databases at basin scale is to perform climate variability/risk analysis by using traditional statistic tools and also new approach with hydrological modeling. At national level, the study will focus on development of climate scenarios based on ground data and simulation tools. According to the ToRs, the three (03) milestones of the project are to be delivered to JRC between December 2017 and February 2019.

In the framework of phase II of the NEPAD Centres of Excellence in the water sector, the University of Benin Centre of Excellence in Water Science and Technology plans to carry out a
comprehensive assessment of the NEXUS of four key sectors of Water, Energy, Food and Ecosystem (WEFE).

The African Network of Centres of Excellence (ACEs) on Water Sciences Phase 2 (designated ACE Water 2) is aimed at fostering sustainable capacity development at scientific, technical and
institutional level in the water sector by carrying out high-end scientific research on water and related sectors in order to provide effective and educational support to governments in partnership with UNESCO and JRC. With this view, the Centre of Excellence (CoE) at National Water Resources Institute (NWRI), Kaduna has carried out a study on the issues bordering on Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem (WEFE) in the northern Nigeria part of the Niger River Basin (NRB), to review climate variability and extreme event, hydrology and reservoir management, agriculture and water issues. This report is the result of the literature studies carried out in the exploration of five major areas of WEFE in the northern part of Nigeria in the NRB.
The study area covered the Niger River Basin (NRB) in the northern part of Nigeria. The basin has an area of approximately 2.3 million sq km spreading over 10 countries. The Basin has its
largest part in Mali, Niger and Nigeria, each covering about 25% of the total basin area with approximately 100 million people dealing mainly with the traditional, low input, rainfed farming
ranging from nomadic pastoralism to small scale irrigated agriculture. The Basin is drained by River Niger of a length of approximately 4,200 km, joining its main tributary, the Benue River in
south-central Nigeria and flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Nigeria alone contains 28.3 percent (424,500 square kilometers) of the Basin area and more than half of her major rivers are in the
Niger River Basin. Almost 60 percent of Nigeria’s population, or about 67.6 million inhabitants, live in the Basin.

The study will focus on Sokoto-Rima River Basin which is a sub-basin of the NRB. Research work will be based mainly on desk reviews and will cover the northern Nigeria in general.

In line with the NEPAD-EU ACEWATER Phase II scope of work, part of the activities involves carrying out research in Water, Energy, Food and Ecosystems (WEFE) nexus assessment in the Niger Delta Basin of Nigeria covering the area from Lokoja in Kogi State down to where the River Niger empties into the Atlantic Ocean. It is in Lokoja that the study area over laps with the part of the Niger Basin being covered by the National Water Resources Institute, Kaduna, the second CoE in Nigeria.

Dans le cadre de la mise en oeuvre du projet E-Nexus, il est prévu le développement et l’implémentation d’un modèle hydrologique pour l’estimation du bilan hydrologique et la gestion de l’eau, la production agricole, le maintien des écosystèmes. A cet effet, SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) a été identifié comme le modèle hydrologique à développer sur le bassin du Niger. Ce modèle permettra de fournir des produits et services sur la connaissance des ressources en eau sur l’ensemble du bassin (adéquation entre la disponibilité et la demande), la prévision des crues (contribution au système d’alerte précoce), les projections d’échelle climatiques (planification des ressources en eau sur le bassin). Dans ce présent rapport, nous présentons les étapes de développement du modèle SWAT comportant la collecte des données complémentaires, le processus de calage du modèle et les projections climatiques à considérer pour évaluer la disponibilité future des ressources en eau dans le bassin du fleuve Niger.