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Impacts of climate change on environmental flows in West Africa's Upper Niger Basin and the Inner Niger Delta

Thompson, JR; Laize, CLR; Acreman, MC; Crawley, A; Kingston, DG; (2021) Impacts of climate change on environmental flows in West Africa's Upper Niger Basin and the Inner Niger Delta. Hydrology Research 10.2166/nh.2021.041. (In press). Green open access

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Abstract

Modified water regimes due to climate change are likely to be a major cause of freshwater ecosystem alteration. General Circulation Model (GCM)-related uncertainty in environmental flows at 12 gauging stations in the Upper Niger Basin and flooding within the Inner Niger Delta is assessed using the Ecological Risk due to the Flow Alteration method and a hydrological model forced with projections from 12 GCM groups for RCP 4.5 in the 2050s and 2080s. Risk varies between GCM groups and stations. It increases into the future and is larger for changes in low flows compared to high flows. For the ensemble mean, a small minority of GCM groups projects no risk for high flows in the 2050s (low risk otherwise). This reverses for the 2080s. For low flows, no risk is limited to three stations in the 2050s and one station in the 2080s, the other experience either low or medium risk. There is greater consistency in the risk of change in flood extent, especially in the dry season (medium risk for all groups and the ensemble mean). Some (low or medium) risk of change in peak annual inundation is projected for most groups. Changing flood patterns have implications for wetland ecology and ecosystem services.

Type: Article
Title: Impacts of climate change on environmental flows in West Africa's Upper Niger Basin and the Inner Niger Delta
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.2166/nh.2021.041
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.2166/nh.2021.041
Language: English
Additional information: © 2021 The Authors This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY 4.0), which permits copying, adaptation and redistribution, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Geography
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10131312
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