This study explored how droughts have evolved over time in northern Benin, a region that relies heavily on rainfall for farming. By analyzing rainfall and river flow patterns, the research found that while conditions improved after major droughts in the 1970s and 1980s, recent years have seen longer dry spells and worsening water shortages. These results can inform better planning for farming and water use in a changing climate.

This study assessed ERA5 reanalysis on runoff, evapotranspiration, water table depth, and soil water content over the Benin basins at spatial scale and monthly time scale. The results showed that the reanalysis simulates well the peaks of mean runoff. It showed the best performance in terms of correlation (>0.50) for runoff, SWC, and ETR. But, the correlations were below 0.5 on the reanalysis for WTD with slight overestimation.

Knowledge of rainfall statistical behaviour is a prerequisite to designing rainwater drainage facilities. In West Africa, most practitioners use the Gumbel distribution regardless of rainfall statistical behaviour. This study quantifies biases induced by the use of the Gumbel distribution. It was found that the use of the Gumbel distribution instead of appropriate distributions leads to an underestimation (−45.9 %) of annual daily rainfall maxima and thus to an uncertain design of facilities.

Floods are natural disasters that widely affect people, goods, and ecosystems. Some efforts have been made in predicting floods at a short-term range. However, the usefulness of flood prediction increases as the time lead increases. This work investigated covariates useful for flood prediction several months ahead. Very good relationships were found between flood discharge and some climate indexes which could serve as a basis for seasonal flood forecasting in West Africa.

This study evaluates the impact of future climate change on the hydropower generation potential of the Bamboi catchment (Black Volta). The results indicate a projected mean annual precipitation increase while a decrease of hydropower generation is expected.