Boulain Nicolas, Cappelaere Bernard, Seguis Luc, Gignoux J., Peugeot Christophe. (2006). Hydrologic and land use impacts on vegetation growth and NPP at the watershed scale in a semi-arid environment. Regional Environmental Change, 6 (3), p. 147-156. ISSN 1436-3798.
Titre du document
Hydrologic and land use impacts on vegetation growth and NPP at the watershed scale in a semi-arid environment
Regional Environmental Change, 2006,
6 (3), p. 147-156 ISSN 1436-3798
Significant, adverse climatic change and drastically increased demographic pressure have strongly affected, in recent years, the hydrology and environment in the semi-arid Sahel region of West Africa. Marked rain deficits have coincided with increased water runoff, meaning less water availability for the vegetation. Conversely, changes in vegetation cover have had strong repercussions on the hydrologic cycle. To study these phenomena, the coupling of two explicit, process-based models, of catchment hydrology and of mixed vegetation cover, respectively, has been undertaken and applied to a 2 km(2) site in Niger. Some of the first significant results are presented herein. Some are consistent with intuitive judgements that can be made in the absence of a coupled model, others are much less so and show that representation through model coupling of hydro sphere/biosphere interactions is essential to produce more reliable analyses and projections. In particular, it is found that the relation of biomass productivity to rainfall under this dry, water-limited climate is not as straightforward as one would expect, more specifically, that its main control may not be the total season rainfall.
