Extreme flow variability analysis at the Bianouan hydrometric station on the Bia River watershed in Côte d'Ivoire

Abstract

Abstract. Extreme hydrological phenomena recurrence in West Africa in recent decades is a problem in the anthropized watershed management. Link analysis between extreme hydrological phenomena and climate variability is necessary to guard against their consequences. However, qualitative data accessing difficulties and explanatory variable definition of extremes hydrological phenomena limit extreme flows rate studies. This study proposes the analysis the variability of the floods and the low flows at the Bianouan hydrometric station. Thus, five (5) floods characteristics variables (QCX5, QXJA, F90p, F95p and F99p) and three (3) for, the low flows (VCN10, QJNA and F10p) were extracted daily flows from the Bianouan hydrometric station from 1 January 1962 to 31 December 2005. The variability of these extremes has been studied by the trend analysis (linear regression) and of the stationarity (Pettitt and Hubert tests). The results show that for flood variables the negative trend is very significant and ruptures are observed in 1980. For low flow variables the negative trend is significant and the ruptures are observed in 1981. From this study, we can deduce that the ruptures observed in the rains and flows average in the end 1960s and early 1970s have affected later the extreme flows around the 1980s.