Study of the Spatio-Temporal Variability of Rainfall in the Northern Region of Senegal

Senegal is a country of the Sahel. In this region, most of the populations live from agro-pastoral activities. The northern zone of Senegal is strongly influenced by river cultures. And the dynamics of the Senegal River are dependent on rainfall. The rainfall in the area is very closely linked to the dynamics of the atmosphere. The study of the spatio-temporal variability of rainfall in the northern region of Senegal requires quality rainfall observation data. It includes the Ferlo and the Senegal River valley, in particular the regions of Louga (department of Linguère included), Saint-Louis (departments of Dagana and Podor included) and Matam. These stations have been defined since Le Borgne (1988). The difficulty of having quality rain observation data can be resolved by using more accessible and good quality satellite data. Using satellite data, namely MSWEP, CRU, TAMSAT, ARC and PERSIANN, we showed the return of precipitation that appeared in 2000 and the unimodal cycle of precipitation in our study area. These data were validated using the correlation coefficient, the bias, the RMSE and the Nash index with observation data from the Regional Study Center for the Improvement of Adaptation to Drought (CERASS). The CRU data is then retained. Thus, this study made it possible to show the zonal distribution of rainfall in the northern zone of Senegal.

Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Rainfall Breaks in Senegal

This study analyzes the spatio-temporal distribution of daily rainfall data from 13 stations in the country of Senegal located in the North-West of Africa. These data, covering the period 1950-2010, are extracted from the database of the Regional Study Center for the Improvement of Drought Adaptation (CERAAS). They allow to calculate, in each station, dry episodes and their sequences and the results reveal a latitudinal variability of class 1 breaks (1 - 3 days) with the highest values recorded in the south. Unlike the class 2 episodes (greater or equal than 15 days), the latitudinal gradient is less pronounced but they are more frequent in the north. For most of the regions studied, a break in the trend towards an increase in dry sequences can be noted, most often at the beginning of the 1970s, which coincides with the start of the great drought of the 1970s decade. For all sites, the frequency of dry episodes of class 1 (1 - 3 days) exceeds 70%. The frequency of class 2 of dry episodes (greater or equal than 15 days) decreased from 30% in 1951-1970 to 18% in 1991-2010 in the region of Thiès;from 25% in 1951-1970 to 20% in 1991-2010 in Louga;from 22% in 1951-1970 to 18% in 1991-2010 in Tamba;23% in 1951-1970 to 15% in 1991-2010 in Ziguinchor;25% in 1951-1970 to 16% in 1991-2010 in Kolda;22% in 1951-1970 to 18% in 1991-2010 in Diourbel and finally 20% in 1951-1970 to 17% in 1991-2010 in Fatick. Over the whole period of study, the spatial distribution of the number of dry periods in class 1 is higher in the South than in the Center and in the North of Senegal. For class 2 breaks, the latitudinal gradient is less pronounced and the minimum number of dry periods in this class is recorded in the south, especially in Ziguinchor. However, the maximum is observed in the Center. In the Northern region (Saint-Louis), classes 3 and 4 are much more frequent. This spatial variability of rainfall breaks is clearly associated with the rainfall gradient between the North and the South. The temporal evolution of the numbers of each class intrinsically follows the evolution of the ITCZ.

Trend and Return Level Analysis of Extreme Rainfalls in Senegal

In recent years, Senegal has been confronted with increasingly frequent and damaging extreme events. In the context of climate change, we conducted this study to characterize the trends of rainfall extremes in Senegal. In this work, we used daily rainfall data from 27 stations in Senegal from the period 1951 to 2005 (55 years). To study their linear trends, non-stationary extreme value models with time as a covariate are fitted to evaluate them. Our results indicate a decreasing trend of extreme rainfalls at most of the stations except for 5 stations. However, the decreasing trends are only significant for two stations (Thiès and Kidira), however, this can only be taken as information that climate change may have already impacted extreme rainfalls. For the 20-year and 30-year return periods, the results show that they have undergone changes, in fact for almost all stations, the trends in return periods are decreasing.