Abstract
The availability of water resources in a reservoir for electricity generation is strongly linked to climate and weather conditions. Also, the use of these water resources is influenced by the population size as well as anthropogenic activities. This research attempts to assess the combined effects of (i) climate change (CC), (ii) land use/land cover change (LULCC), and (iii) development (Dev) conditions on water resources and hydropower generation (HPGen) using Regional Climate Models (RCMs) from Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) under the Representative Concentrated Pathways (RCP): RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. The RCMs considered are: CanRCM, CCLM, and WRF being drived by CanESM2, CNRM-CERFACS, and NorESM1, respectively. The Water Evaluation and Planning model (WEAP) tool is used to simulate the water availability and HPGen in the Mono basin under present and future conditions. The ensemble mean of the three-climate dataset analysis reveals that the temperature is projected to increase significantly while the precipitation change is uncertain under both RCPs in the near (2020–2050) and the far (2070–2090) futures. These changes in climate variables consequently affected simulated water availability for different water consumption sectors especially the HPGen in the near and far futures. Moreover, the Dev was found to exacerbate the burden that constitutes the CC for water availability and HPGen. Nevertheless, LULCC associated with either CC or both CC and Dev were projected by all the RCMs and their ensemble mean to reduce this burden. However, its side effects namely reservoir siltation and sedimentation need to be deeply investigated.
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Data Availability
The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank the Institute of Research for Development (IRD, France), Institute of Geosciences for Environment (IGE, University Grenoble Alpes) and LAPAMF—African Centre of Excellence on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development (CEA-CCBAD) for providing the facility (the Regional Climate Modelling Platform) to perform this study at the University Felix Houphouët Boigny (Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire). The authors thank Dr. Baptiste François of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst (USA) for his useful comments that help to improve this manuscript. This study was implemented thanks to the high performance of the Centre National de Calcul de Côte d’Ivoire (CNC-CI).
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The research leading to this publication is co-funded by the NERC/DFID “Future Climate for Africa” programme under the AMMA-2050 project, grant number NE/M019969/1 and by IRD (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement; France) grant number UMR IGE Imputation 252RA5”. The support for the final improvement with new additional data and analyses was possible thanks to the Dan David Prize.
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S.O. conducted this research. A.D., E.A and M.Y.T. were the advisors: Conceptualization, S.O. and A.D.; Methodology, S.O., A.D., M.Y.T. and E.A.; Data Curation, K.K. and E.A.; Writing—Original Draft Preparation, S.O. and A.D.; Writing—Review & Editing, E.A., Y.M.K. and K.K. and M.Y.T; Funding Acquisition, A.D.
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Obahoundje, S., Youan Ta, M., Diedhiou, A. et al. Sensitivity of Hydropower Generation to Changes in Climate and Land Use in the Mono Basin (West Africa) using CORDEX Dataset and WEAP Model. Environ. Process. 8, 1073–1097 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40710-021-00516-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40710-021-00516-0