The GEOSS Joint Asia-Africa Water Cycle Symposium
Tokyo from 25-27 November 2013

ProjectFlood forecasting and Climate change impact
assessment for decision making in the Niger
River Basin

Dr. Abdou Ali & Eng. Bachir Alkaly Tanimouna.ali@agrhymet.nebalkaly@abn.ne

The Niger
River Basin•Located in West-Africa• 9th largest world river• 3rd largest river in Africa• Theoretical catchment area is 2 million km²• Current active catchment area is 1.5 million km²• Total length of the river is 4200 km.
• Active catchment is shared by 9 countries:
 Benin (2 %); Burkina (2%);
 Cameroun (4 %); Chad (1 %); Cote D’Ivoire (1 %); Guinea (6 %); Mali (25 %), Niger (21 %); Nigeria (32 %).

•Population is estimated over 130 million habitants.
• high rate of growing (3 % per year).
•Around 32 % of the population are living in urban areaand 68 % in rural area.

Rainfall inter-annual variability in the region

Persistence of dry years

Persistence of wet years

Abrupt change fromvery wet to very
dry years

The Niger River Basin is complex andheterogeneousSome challenges in the Niger River basin• High rate of population growth• Land degradation and deforestation, mainly at the Upper Niger• flood concurrencies• Drought• Food security• High climatic variability• Hydropower energy sustainability• Water quality• Silting problem• Etc..

Some hotpots
Land degradation,
deforestation,
climate change
impact on WR

Complex ecosystemin the Delta Inlandand important rice
irrigation activities
Hydropower
sustainability
Flood occurrence

Recurrent flood inNiamey

Some hotpots

Project Objectives• Climate change and land degradation anddeforestation impacts assessment onhydropower sustainability in the upper Niger
and on rice irrigation in the Inland.
• Flood early warning at Niamey, the capital ofNiger

Project activities• Install automatic integrated meteorological and hydrological (rainfall,evapotranspiration and discharge) observation network• carry out advanced studies to characterize land surface changes in the Sirba
tributary and in the upper Niger.
• carry out advanced studies to quantify current and future deforestation in theupper-Niger.
• Adapt a distributed hydrological rainfall-runoff model both for Sirba tributary andother small kory contributing to flood in Niamey area and the Upper basin of theNiger River.
• Establish an operational flood forecasting system based on the integrationhydrological, satellite products and on-line ground based data assimilation forNiamey area.
• Assess the future characteristics of the water resources in the Upper Niger, taking
into account deforestation and land-surface changes.
• Assess the sustainability of irrigation in the middle Niger and hydropower
generation on Sélingue.
• Organize stakeholders and end-users in the basin workshops.

Beneficiaries and stakeholders• National hydrological and meteorologicalservices• National disaster risk reduction services• Dams and irrigation managers• River bassin Organisation authorities• Regional organisations• NGOs (Red Cross)Institutions• THE NBA
The Niger Basin Authority was created in 1964
to coordinate the “Integrated Development
Plan in the Niger basin”
The Statement of the Shared Vision is « asustainable area of development through an
integrated water resource management andassociated ecosystems for the improvementof the population living conditions andprosperity

Institutions• AGRHYMETThe AGRHYMET Regional Center was created in1973 as a regional scientific and technicalinterstate body to develop tools and methods inthe areas of meteorology, hydrology andagrometeorology. Its mission is to develop anddisseminate information to achieve food security
and build technical capacities of countries.
AGRHYMET and NBA have a close working relationship tocontribute to water resource management

THANK YOU