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Regional water cycle sensitivity to afforestation: synthetic numerical experiments for tropical Africa

Arnault, Joël 1; Mwanthi, Anthony Musili; Portele, Tanja 2; Li, Lu; Rummler, Thomas; Fersch, Benjamin ORCID iD icon 2; Hassan, Mohammed Abdullahi; Bahaga, Titike Kassa; Zhang, Zhenyu 1; Mortey, Eric Mensah; Achugbu, Ifeany Chukwudi; Moutahir, Hassane ORCID iD icon 1; Sy, Souleymane; Wei, Jianhui ORCID iD icon 2; Laux, Patrick ORCID iD icon 2; Sobolowski, Stefan; Kunstmann, Harald 2
1 Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung (IMK), Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT)
2 Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung – Atmosphärische Umweltforschung (IMK-IFU), Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT)

Abstract:

Afforestation as a climate change mitigation option has been the subject of intense debate and study over the last few decades, particularly in the tropics where agricultural activity is expanding. However, the impact of such landcover
changes on the surface energy budget, temperature, and precipitation remains unclear as feedbacks between various components are difficult to resolve and interpret. Contributing to this scientific debate, regional climate models of varying
complexity can be used to test how regional climate reacts to afforestation. In this study, the focus is on the gauged Nzoia basin (12,700 km2) located in a heavily farmed region of tropical Africa. A reanalysis product is dynamically downscaled with a coupled atmospheric-hydrological model (WRF-Hydro) to finely resolve the land-atmosphere system in the Nzoia region. To overcome the problem of Nzoia river flooding over its banks we enhance WRF-Hydro with an overbank flow routing option, which improves the representation of daily discharge based on the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency and Kling-Gupta efficiency (from −2.69 to 0.30, and −0.36 to 0.63, respectively). Changing grassland and cropland areas to savannas, woody savannas, and evergreen broadleaf forest in three synthetic numerical experiments allows the assessment of potential regional climate impacts of three afforestation strategies. ... mehr


Verlagsausgabe §
DOI: 10.5445/IR/1000163902
Veröffentlicht am 07.11.2023
Originalveröffentlichung
DOI: 10.3389/fclim.2023.1233536
Scopus
Zitationen: 3
Dimensions
Zitationen: 4
Cover der Publikation
Zugehörige Institution(en) am KIT Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung – Atmosphärische Umweltforschung (IMK-IFU)
Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung (IMK)
Publikationstyp Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Publikationsjahr 2023
Sprache Englisch
Identifikator ISSN: 2624-9553
KITopen-ID: 1000163902
HGF-Programm 12.11.33 (POF IV, LK 01) Regional Climate and Hydrological Cycle
Erschienen in Frontiers in Climate
Verlag Frontiers Media SA
Band 5
Seiten Art.-Nr.: 1233536
Vorab online veröffentlicht am 03.10.2023
Nachgewiesen in Scopus
Dimensions
Globale Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung Ziel 2 – Kein HungerZiel 13 – Maßnahmen zum KlimaschutzZiel 15 – Leben an Land
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