Dynamique hydroclimatique de l’Oubangui amont à Mobaye, République
Centrafricaine : étude comparée du rôle de la savane et de la forêt
équatoriale
Abstract
The rainfall reduction in the 1970s, less marked in Central Africa than
in West Africa, still had a major impact on the hydrological regimes of
the region’s large rivers. The study of the hydropluviometric behavior
of the Ubangi at Mobaye has the advantage of studying a basin excluding
anthropogenic impact. Forest cover and population density have not
changed since at least 1970. Statistical analysis of the breaks in the
long rainfall time series from Ubangi at Mobaye (1935-2015) confirms a
long period of drought from 1969 to 2006 corresponding to a reduction of
-8% in rainfall. And the study of the corresponding hydrological series
indicates a second downward break in 1981, few years after the rainfall
increase. This period points an exceptional hydrological drought period
until 2013, which is the first year with an increase of flows. The
statistical study of the annual rainfall/flow series of the upstream
basins over the period 1951-1995 (the Kotto at Kembé and Bria, the Mbomu
at Bangassou and Zémio, the Uélé + Bili hydrographic system) highlights
different hydrological behaviors related to the vegetation cover. The
savanna basins show a continuous hydrological deficit marked by a runoff
coefficient (CE) that fell to 5% only from the 1990s. On the other
hand, the basins under forest show a runoff increase since 1990 marked
by CE above 10%. Under savannah, the part of the flow infiltrating to
recharge the aquifer would have decreased faster than under forest,
which results in a runoff coefficient CE very significantly negatively
correlated with the savanna area present in the studied watershed.