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Impact of extreme rainfall variability and changes on ground traffic in Cameroon

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Abstract

Extreme rainfall events are a serious threat to the well-being of Cameroon’s society. The reliability of studies on extreme events such as floods depends on the quality of the data and their distribution in time and space. Although these topics are still incomplete in many African countries, the present work focuses on the action of extreme rainfall variability and changes on ground traffic in Cameroon using the Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS) estimation data in the simulation of precipitation at the intra-seasonal scale. For this purpose, the performance assessment of the CFSv2 model was first made on the basis of two mathematical techniques such as the Generalized Relative Operating Characteristics (GROC) score and the Ranked Probability Skill Score (RPSS). Then, based on this calculation of the different performance scores, the analysis and interpretations of the model outputs, the study is carried out on the extreme events (floods) of the first 3 weeks of August 2021 to understand the impact of extreme rainfall over road transport in Cameroon. The results suggest that the CFSv2 model is the best performance for rainfall simulation at this intra-seasonal scale with CHIRPS satellite estimation data for the first 3 weeks of August 2021 in Cameroon and is adequate to improve the prevention of accidents and road transportation infrastructure caused by extreme events (flooding) to heavy rainfall in Cameroon.

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We have the materials, all the raw and processed data and result products. We can provide the processed data and documents if it is required.

Code availability

The tools used in this work included the CHIRPS estimation data in the simulation of precipitation at the intra-seasonal scale and the CFSv2 model for the analysis and interpretations of the model outputs.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and editors for their valuable comments and suggestions for improving and accepting the paper.

Funding

This study was funded by the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Meteorology and Climatology, National Advanced School of Engineering, University of Maroua, Maroua, Cameroon

    Daïka Augustin

  2. Laboratory of Earth’s Atmosphere Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Yaoundé 1, Yaoundé, Cameroon

    Daïka Augustin, Messanga Etoundi Honoré & Mbane Biouele Cesar

  3. Climate Application and Prediction Centre of Central Africa (CAPC-AC), Douala, Cameroon

    Igri Moudi Pascal

  4. Laboratory of Environmental Modeling and Atmospheric Physics, Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Yaoundé 1, Yaoundé, Cameroon

    Igri Moudi Pascal

  5. Department of Geomatics, Higher Technical Teacher Training College, University of Ebolowa, Ebolowa, Cameroon

    Messanga Etoundi Honoré

  6. Applied Biotechnology and Engineering Laboratory, Higher Technical Teacher Training College of Ebolowa, University of Ebolowa, Ebolowa, Cameroon

    Messanga Etoundi Honoré

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  1. Daïka Augustin
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  2. Igri Moudi Pascal
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  3. Messanga Etoundi Honoré
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  4. Mbane Biouele Cesar
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Contributions

DA: investigation, conceptualization, visualization, and writing—original draft and formal analysis; IMP: investigation, data curation, methodology, visualization and software; MEH and MBC: validation, writing, supervision, review and editing.

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Correspondence to Daïka Augustin.

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Augustin, D., Pascal, I.M., Honoré, M.E. et al. Impact of extreme rainfall variability and changes on ground traffic in Cameroon. Theor Appl Climatol 155, 3175–3185 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-023-04801-w

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