Ekolu J. auteur aut IRD Dieppois B. auteur aut IRD Sidibe M. auteur aut IRD Eden J.M. auteur aut IRD Tramblay Yves auteur aut IRD Villarini G. auteur aut IRD Peña-Angulo D. auteur aut IRD Mahé Gil auteur aut IRD Paturel Jean-Emmanuel auteur aut IRD Onyutha C. auteur aut IRD Van de Wiel M. auteur aut IRD text journalArticle eng text/pdf reformatted digital access Understanding hydrological variability is of crucial importance for water resource management in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). While existing studies typically focus on individual river basins, and suffer from incomplete records, this study provides a new perspective of trends and variability in hydrological flood and drought characteristics (frequency, duration, and intensity) across the entire SSA. This is achieved by: i) creating a 65-year long, complete daily streamflow dataset consisting of over 600 gauging stations; ii) quantifying changes in flood and drought characteristics between 1950 and 2014; iii) evaluating how decadal variability influences historical trends. Results of daily streamflow reconstructions using random forests provide satisfactory performance over most of SSA, except for parts of southern Africa. Using change-point and trend analyses, we identify-three periods that characterise historical variations affecting hydrological extremes in western and central Africa, and some parts of southern Africa: i) the 1950s-60s and after the 1980s-90s, when floods (droughts) tend to be more (less) intense, more (less) frequent and more (less) persistent; and ii) the 1970s-80s, when floods (droughts) are less (more) intense, less (more) frequent and less (more) persistent. Finally, we reveal significant decadal variations in all flood and drought characteristics, which explain aperiodic increasing and decreasing trends. This stresses the importance of considering multiple time-periods when analysing recent trends, as previous assessments may have been unrepresentative of long-term changes. specialized AFRIQUE SUBSAHARIENNE 062REGHYD03 613 128359 [17 ] 2022 0022-1694 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010090928 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2022.128359 0022-1694 [F B010090928] https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010090928 https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/2024-07/010090928.pdf IRD - Base Horizon / Pleins textes 2024-05-29 2025-02-24 fdi:010090928 fre