Hydroclimatic Variability in Africa’s Transboundary River Basin Using
+50 Years of Extended Terrestrial Water Storage
Abstract
Information concerning the types, patterns, and intensity of
hydroclimatic variability is needed in various sectors, including water
resources planning and climate change adaptation, among numerous others.
In transboundary river basins, the nature of hydroclimatic variability
frequently is a critical input in the treaties governing water resources
allocation to competing parties and sectors. Yet, the pattern of
hydroclimatic variability across Africa’s Transboundary Rivers Basins
(ATRB) remains poorly investigated owing primarily to lack of access to
required data. To the extent that such studies exist, they often have
been conducted at different times using different data sets and
reference periods, making comparisons across the continent difficult. In
this paper, we make use of NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate
Experiment (GRACE) satellite data to extend the Terrestrial Water
Storage (TWS) +50 years prior GRACE era using the unique Generalized
Additive Model for Location Scale and Shape (GAMLSS) approach on the
Global Land Data Assimilation System Version 2 data (GLDAS V2). The
results revealed a downward trend of the TWS over Africa with a decrease
rate of 0.14 cm/yr. The spatial patterns of TWS in ATRB showed a
significant decreasing trend for Nile, Niger, Chad, Volta, and Congo
River Basins, compared to the insignificant trends for Zambezi,
Okavango, Limpopo and Orange River Basins. The spatial trends in annual
TWS is primarily related to the regional variation in the precipitation
trends. The largest negative trend in precipitation were observed over
West Africa and Sahel region. The dry trend over south Africa were
intervened by wet records. The nature of these hydroclimatic patterns
are explained by the significant reduction in the total precipitation
and the increasing demands on water resources.