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Assessment of Catchment Behavior of the Wadi Louza in NW-Algeria Under Hydrological Drought Conditions

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Abstract

Climate-related droughts have become more common in many parts of the world in recent years, causing negative consequences for agriculture, the environment, and food security. The recent drought in northwestern Algeria’s semi-arid regions has had an impact on both water resource balance and agriculture, with hydrological processes being particularly badly affected and provided hydrological drought. The Wadi Louza basin is one of the drought-affected regions, as it is situated in an area with scarce water resources. Data from hydrological gauging stations for 28 years were used to investigate drought history. The aim of this study is to characterise and monitor the hydrological drought over different time periods (3, 6, 9, and 12 months) using the Streamflow Drought Index (SDI) index and to evaluate the behavior of the Wadi Louza catchment under drought conditions using a HBV-light hydrological model. The results show that the driest hydrological years were 1991–1993, and 2005–2006, and that a 12-month time scale was the most appropriate for developing an effective drought mitigation strategy. The HBV-light model generates a portion of the runoff in the lower soil zone that is predicted to be 15.30% of recharge, confirming that the Wadi Louza basin has been subjected to extreme droughts.

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Notes

  1. IPCC: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

  2. IFRC: The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Technology, Nour Bachir University Centre, BP 900, 32000, El-Bayadh, Algeria

    M’hamed Atallah & Fayçal Djellouli

  2. Department of Hydraulic, Faculty of Technologies, Tlemcen University, N. 25, BP 119, 13000, Tlemcen, Algeria

    Abderrazak Bouanani & Kamila Baba-Hamed

  3. Applied Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK

    Abdullah-Al- Faisal

  4. Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee, TN 38111, USA

    Khairul Hasan

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  1. M’hamed Atallah
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Atallah, M., Djellouli, F., Bouanani, A. et al. Assessment of Catchment Behavior of the Wadi Louza in NW-Algeria Under Hydrological Drought Conditions. Earth Syst Environ 7, 297–306 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41748-022-00325-x

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