Extreme Coastal Water Levels Evolution at Dakar (Senegal, West Africa)

Abstract

Increasingly, it is reported that the coastline of the Dakar region is affected by coastal flooding due to extreme water levels during wave events. Here, we quantify the extreme coastal water levels as well as the different factors contributing to coastal flooding during the period 1994–2015. Severe water levels reach values of 1.78 m and increase by 8.4 mm/year. The time spent above this threshold has already increased by 1.7 over the study period and will increase by 2100 to 8 times with 0.4 m mean sea level rise and up to 20 times with 0.8 m in the IPCC low and high greenhouse gas emission scenarios, respectively. Tide is the main contributor to the extremes when combined with large wave runup, due to wave breaking which contributes to 38% of the increase in extreme events while sea level rises to 44%. Our results show that because of its prominent location, Dakar region is affected by waves coming from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres with contrasted evolutions: wave runup events increase faster (7 mm/year) during austral winter due to a maximum of the South Atlantic storm activity, and have a decreasing trend (−3 mm/year) during boreal winter (December, January, February) driven by the evolution of corresponding climate modes.