Abstract
Abstract. Nowadays, special attention is paid to hydroelectric production because it is an efficient, reliable, and renewable source of energy, especially in developing countries like Cameroon, where hydropower potential is the main source of electricity production. It also represents a useful tool to reduce the atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations caused by human activities. However, it is the most sensitive industry to global warming, mainly because climate change will directly affect the quality, quantity of water resources (streamflow and runoff), which are the important drivers of hydropower potential. This study examined the response of hydropower potential to climate change on the Lagdo dam located in the Benue River Basin, Northern Cameroon. Hydropower potential was computed based on streamflow simulated using HBV-Light hydrological model with dynamically downscaled temperature and precipitation from the regional climate model REMO. These data were obtained using the boundary conditions of two general circulation models (GCMs): the Europe-wide Consortium Earth System Model (EC-Earth) and the Max Planck Institute-Earth System Model (MPI-ESM) under three Representative Concentrations Pathways (RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). The results suggest that, the combination of decreased precipitation and streamflow, increased PET will negatively impact the hydropower potential in the Lagdo dam under climate change scenarios, models and future periods.
Highlights
The Benue River Basin (BRB) is the Cameroonian part of the Niger River Basin (NRB) and occupies 4.4 % of the overall basin
Measured weather data and potential evapotranspiration (PET) computed with Penman formula (Penman, 1948) from 1961–1978, used to calibrate and validate the model was obtained from the Direction of the National Meteorology of Cameroon (DNM), while the daily streamflow data measured at the available hydro-metric stations (Riao) located in the basin, were obtained from the Hydrosciences Montpellier – Système d’Informations Environnementales database (SIEREM; Boyer et al, 2006; http: //hydrosciences.fr/sierem, last access: 17 October 2021)
The main focus of this work was to evaluate the influence of the projected temperature and precipitation change on hydropower potential of the Lagdo dam in the BRB, Northern
Summary
The Benue River Basin (BRB) is the Cameroonian part of the Niger River Basin (NRB) and occupies 4.4 % of the overall basin. The BRB lies between latitude 7 and 11◦ N and longitude 12 and 16◦ E (Fig. 1), and constitutes the second-largest river in Cameroon. It is the only perennial river in northern Cameroon and the neighboring areas where most of the rivers are seasonal (Olivry, 1986). The dam is 308 m long, 40 m in height and 9 m thick with an area of 586 km2 It has an installed capacity of 72 MW and the entire northern part of Cameroon is currently supplied with electricity from Lagdo. Given its capacity on hydropower, there is a proposal to increase hydropower and irrigation capacity of the Lagdo dam with the objective to supply electricity to other countries such as the Chad Republic, the northern Nigeria and part of the Central African Republic (IRAP, 2015)
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