Climate Change impacts on hydrological and plant resources in the agro-pastoral Sahel

The Sahel is a semi-arid region where the majority of the population depends on subsistence farming. This region is considered as a hotspot for climate change with an expected warming of 3 to 4°C by 2100. Indeed, climate projections show that dry periods are likely to be longer and extreme rainfall will be more frequent. These changes could have a major impact on hydrological and vegetal resources. This study aims to assess these impacts on a typical Sahelian agro-pastoral ecosystem dominated by millet crops and shrubby savannah in South-Western Niger. Climate scenarios are constructed from a local set of observed climate data combined with CMIP6 and other climate scenarios dedicated to Sahelian region. These scenarios are used to constrain SiSPAT SVAT (soil-vegetation-atmosphere transfer) model in order to simulate the surface water and energy fluxes. Results show that both energy and water balances are deeply influenced by temperature and air humidity changes. Temperature increase mainly affects the sensible heat flux (H), e.g., H decreases by 38% for a 3°C of temperature increase. Moreover, results show that the impact of temperature and humidity changes on evapotranspiration, partly compensate each other; higher temperature in the rainy season, leads to higher evapotranspiration values, contrarily to the impact of humidity increase. The surface water balance is mostly influenced by the rainfall regime modification, e.g., intensification of extreme rainfall leads to 59% increase in drainage. It also generates more runoff (+ 500 %), that would increase the risk of flooding but could cause a rise in groundwater levels, which is called the Sahelian paradox. Finally, it also increases the soil water storage, which could lead to a longer vegetation cycle. For this aim, coupling with crop and/or hydrological modelling would be useful to quantify the impacts of climate evolution on vegetal and water resources dynamics. It would allow to find efficiently adapted strategies for crop and water management.