Designing Transnational Hydroclimatological Observation Networks and Data Sharing Policies in West Africa

Salack, Seyni; Bossa, Aymar Yaovi; Bliefernicht, Jan; Berger, Sina; Yira, Yacouba; Sanoussi, Kamil A.; Guug, Samuel; Heinzeller, Dominikus; Avocanh, Adolphe S.; Barro, Hamadou; Meda, Symphorien; Diallo, Belko A.; Bado, Igor B.; Saley, Inoussa Abdou; Daku, Elidaa K.; Lawson, Namo Z.; Ganaba, Aida; Sanfo, Safiétou; Hien, Koufanou; Aduna, A.; Steup, Gero; Diekkrüger, Bernd; Waongo, Moussa; Rogmann, Antonio; Kunkel, Ralf; Lamers, John P. A.; Sylla, Mouhamadou Bamba; Kunstmann, Harald; Barry, Boubacar; Sedogo, Laurent G.; Jaminon, Christian; Vlek, Paul L. G.; Adegoke, Jimmy; Savadogo, Moumini

doi:10.5334/dsj-2019-033

Cited by 10 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Daily rainfall was derived from a combination of on the ground and satellite observations. On the ground data was obtained from the Agence Nationale de la Météorologie (ANAM) in Burkina Faso and belonged to a novel quality-controlled precipitation database established as part of the WASCAL (West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use) observation network ( 39 , 44 ). The on the ground-rainfall dataset was based on daily measurements from 19 rainfall stations located in the Nouna HDSS area surroundings (<80 km) and included data from 1981 to 2016.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Rainfall Variability on Diets and Undernutrition of Young Children in Rural Burkina Faso

Mank

Belesova²,

Bliefernicht³

et al. 2021

Front. Public Health

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Background: Climate change and consequent increases in rainfall variability may have negative consequences for the food production of subsistence farmers in West Africa with adverse impacts on nutrition and health. We explored the pathway from rainfall through diet up to child undernutrition for rural Burkina Faso.Methods: The study used data of a dynamic cohort with 1,439 children aged 7–60 months from the Nouna Health and Demographic Surveillance Site (HDSS) for 2017 to 2019. We assessed data on diets, height, weight, household characteristics, and daily precipitation (from 1981 to 2019). Principal component analysis was used to identify distinct child dietary patterns (Dietary Pattern Scores, DPS). These were related to 15 rainfall indicators by area to obtain a precipitation variability score (PVS) through reduced rank regression (RRR). Associations between the PVS and anthropometric measures, height-for-age (HAZ), and weight-for-height (WHZ), were examined using multi-level regression analysis.Results: Stunting (HAZ < −2) and wasting (WHZ < −2) were seen in 24 and 6% of the children. Three main dietary patterns were identified (market-based, vegetable-based, and legume-based diets) and showed mixed evidence for associations with child undernutrition. The RRR-derived PVS explained 14% of the total variance in these DPS. The PVS was characterized by more consecutive dry days during the rainy season, higher cumulative rainfall in July and more extremely wet days. A 1-point increase in the PVS was associated with a reduction of 0.029 (95% CI: −0.06, 0.00, p < 0.05) in HAZ in the unadjusted, and an increase by 0.032 (95% CI: 0.01, 0.06, p < 0.05) in WHZ in the fully adjusted model.Conclusion: Rainfall variability was associated with dietary patterns in young children of a rural population of Burkina Faso. Increased rainfall variability was associated with an increase in chronic undernutrition, but not in acute undernutrition among young children.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Rainfall Variability on Diets and Undernutrition of Young Children in Rural Burkina Faso

Mank

Belesova²,

Bliefernicht³

et al. 2021

Front. Public Health

Self Cite

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“…In some cases, data can only be shared if there are bilateral agreements between NHMS and the data acquiring institution. However, even in a comfortable situation of a cooperation agreement, it can be difficult to obtain data due to slow and complicated bureaucracy (Salack et al ., 2019). In some instances, data requests can incur a high fee, even for research or educational purposes.…”

Section: Availability and Access To Climatological Observations In We...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The database consists of daily and monthly observations from precipitation stations with first records starting in 1819. The dataset was collected from global, continental and national data archives as part of the WASCAL (West African Science Services Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use) Observation Network (WASCAL ON, Salack et al ., 2019) with a specific focus on four West African countries (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo and Benin) to support novel meso‐scale observation networks (Bliefernicht et al ., 2018; Salack et al ., 2019) in this region with climate data. WASCAL ON is a joint collaboration between the West African NHMS, WASCAL and partner institutions to strengthen the observational infrastructure of the West African NHMS and to improve the availability of hydro‐meteorological observations for this region (Salack et al ., 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The dataset was collected from global, continental and national data archives as part of the WASCAL (West African Science Services Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use) Observation Network (WASCAL ON, Salack et al ., 2019) with a specific focus on four West African countries (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo and Benin) to support novel meso‐scale observation networks (Bliefernicht et al ., 2018; Salack et al ., 2019) in this region with climate data. WASCAL ON is a joint collaboration between the West African NHMS, WASCAL and partner institutions to strengthen the observational infrastructure of the West African NHMS and to improve the availability of hydro‐meteorological observations for this region (Salack et al ., 2019). Subsets of the WAHPD and related data products were already used by various investigations, for example, for evaluation of regional climate model simulations (Dieng et al ., 2017) and seasonal forecasts products (Bliefernicht et al ., 2019), analysis of precipitation extremes and comparison with satellite products (Engel et al ., 2017), as input information for groundwater reconstruction (Ascott et al ., 2020) and as climate background data of the WASCAL hydro‐meteorological observatories (Bliefernicht et al ., 2018; Salack et al ., 2018b; Berger et al ., 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Towards a historical precipitation database for West Africa: Overview, quality control and harmonization

Bliefernicht

Salack

Waongo

et al. 2021

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Reliable long‐term observations from precipitation stations are often required for climatological studies but are strongly limited in many regions of the world. To improve this limitation for West Africa, we compiled daily and monthly observations from more than 20 national, continental and global databases, to establish a historical precipitation archive with a focus on four countries (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Benin and Togo). The new archive contains long‐term daily and monthly precipitation measurements from 1819 to 2013 for more than 1,000 sites. It is, therefore, the most comprehensive historical dataset with daily and monthly precipitation observations for this region. To produce a quality‐controlled and harmonized precipitation dataset for the focal region, various statistical algorithms have been implemented. These algorithms rely on straightforward geostatistical approaches (e.g., spatial correlograms) and corresponding statistical tests for identification and elimination of unreliable time series, in addition to various standard approaches used by global data centers. Although the quality control revealed various data errors and uncertainties for measurements and meta‐information (e.g., unit conversion errors, temporal offsets, frequent and long data gaps), a spatial interpolation using the quality‐controlled and harmonized dataset produced relatively reliable precipitation patterns for different target variables (e.g., monthly precipitation amount and daily precipitation probability). A major remaining challenge is providing free access to this database for research and other noncommercial purposes, due to national data protection regulations. However, several further tasks have been initiated and implemented (e.g., free provision of gridded precipitation datasets and point statistics) to improve the access and availability of station‐based precipitation observations and related data products for this climatologically challenging region.

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“…Partly due to the lack of high quality and long term observational data in West Africa [5,6], the main processes between land-atmosphere interactions or the climatic drivers of the West African monsoon (WAM) are still not fully understood [7], making it, for instance, difficult to determine certain weather patterns resulting in extreme events. As a consequence, weather and climate forecasts are afflicted with large uncertainties, whereas the vulnerability of the population in West African is increasing due to climate change [5]. This affects food production, in general, and in particular the reliable estimation of the onset of the rainy season to support farmers management options such as the sowing date (e.g., [8][9][10]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Potential of the Cost-Efficient TAHMO Observation Data for Hydro-Meteorological Applications in Sub-Saharan Africa

Schunke

Laux

Bliefernicht

et al. 2021

Water

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The Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory (TAHMO) is a promising initiative aiming to install 20,000 stations in sub-Saharan Africa counteracting the decreasing trend of available measuring stations. To achieve this goal, it is particularly important that the installed weather stations are cost-efficient, appropriate for African conditions, and reliably measure the most important variables for hydro-meteorological applications. Since there exist no performance studies of TAHMO stations while operating in Africa, it is necessary to investigate their performance under different climate conditions. This study provides a first analysis of the performance of 10 selected TAHMO stations across Burkina Faso (BF). More specifically, the analysis consists of missing value statistics, plausibility tests of temperature (minimum, maximum) and precipitation, spatial dependencies (correlograms) by comparison with daily observations from synoptical stations of the BF meteorological service as well as cross-comparison between the TAHMO stations. Based on the results of this study for BF for the period from May 2017 to December 2020, it is concluded that TAHMO potentially offers a reliable and cost-efficient solution for applications in hydro-meteorology. The usage of wind speed measurements cannot be recommended without reservation, at least not without bias correcting of the data. The limited measurement period of TAHMO still prevents its usability in climate (impact) research. It is also stressed that TAHMO cannot replace existing observation networks operated by the local meteorological services, but it can be a complement and has great potential for detailed spatial analyses. Since restricted to BF in this analysis, more evaluation studies of TAHMO are needed considering different environmental and climate conditions across SSA.

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Designing Transnational Hydroclimatological Observation Networks and Data Sharing Policies in West Africa

Cited by 10 publications

References 18 publications

The Impact of Rainfall Variability on Diets and Undernutrition of Young Children in Rural Burkina Faso

The Impact of Rainfall Variability on Diets and Undernutrition of Young Children in Rural Burkina Faso

Towards a historical precipitation database for West Africa: Overview, quality control and harmonization

Exploring the Potential of the Cost-Efficient TAHMO Observation Data for Hydro-Meteorological Applications in Sub-Saharan Africa

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