Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Catena journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/catena Modeling the impact of climate change on water resources and soil erosion in a tropical catchment in Burkina Faso, West Africa Felix Op de Hipt a, ⁎ , Bernd Diekkrüger a , Gero Steup a , Yacouba Yira a , Thomas Hoffmann b , Michael Rode c a Department of Geography, University of Bonn, Meckenheimer Allee 166, 53115 Bonn, Germany b German Federal Institute of Hydrology, Am Mainzer Tor 1, 56068 Koblenz, Germany c Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research – UFZ, Brückstraße 3a, 39114 Magdeburg, Germany ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Hydrological modeling Erosion modeling Climate change ABSTRACT Soil erosion is recognized as one main reason for soil degradation in West Africa. However, predictions on the impact of climate change on soil erosion are rare for most West African countries including Burkina Faso. This study assesses the impact of climate change on water resources and soil erosion in a small catchment (126 km 2 ) in southwestern Burkina Faso. Climate data from an ensemble of six regional (RCM) and global (GCM) climate models were used to run the physically based spatially distributed hydrological and soil erosion model SHETRAN. The Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5 were selected as future climate scenarios. Bias corrected precipitation and temperature required for the calculation of potential evapotranspiration were used as input for the SHETRAN model to simulate total discharge and specific suspended sediment yield (SSY). Discharge and SSY from simulations run with climate data were able to reproduce discharge and SSY from a simulation that used observed precipitation and temperature from the historical period (1971–2000). The impact of climate change on hydrology and soil erosion was assessed by comparing the historical period with the future climate scenarios (2021–2050). Most of the used climate models predict an increase of tempe- rature between 0.9 °C and 2.0 °C. The bias correction did not alter the climate change signal of temperature. Large uncertainties among the RCMs-GCMs exist regarding the climate change signal of future precipitation. Some climate models predict an increased (5.9%–36.5%) others a decreased (6.4%–10.9%) or mixed signal. The applied bias correction did not reverse the climate change signal in most cases but it influenced magnitude and timing of precipitation. The ensemble mean suggests an increased discharge between 19.5% (RCP 8.5) and 36.5% (RCP4.5) and an increased SSY of the same order. In general, the climate change signal and the cor- responding discharge and SSY predictions are afflicted with large uncertainties. These uncertainties impede direct conclusions regarding future development of discharge and erosion. As a consequence of the mixed si- gnals, potential increase and decrease of future discharge and soil erosion have to be incorporated in climate change adaption strategies. 1. Introduction Hydrological and soil erosion processes are substantially driven by the atmosphere through rainfall and evapotranspiration. Rising tem- peratures are frequently predicted by regional (RCM) and global (GCM) climate models and are considered to change spatial and temporal rainfall pattern. Changing rainfall patterns and temperature have dis- tinct effects on water resources and soil erosion (Field and Barros, 2014; Mullan et al., 2012; Nearing et al., 2004). The West African region is severely exposed to the effect of climate change due to the high vulnerability of the predominantly agricultural societies (Serdeczny et al., 2016). Analyzing the impact of climate change on hydrological and soil erosion processes is hampered by the lack of adequate data in terms of spatial and temporal resolution especially in a data scarce region as West Africa. Hydrological and soil erosion models are ne- cessary to estimate past, present, and future development of water and soil resources. The modeled output can be used to provide guidance to decision makers regarding the implementation of climate change adaptation strategies (Beven, 2008; de Vente et al., 2013; Pandey et al., 2016). However, adaptation strategies necessary to mitigate the https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2017.11.023 Received 15 August 2017; Received in revised form 6 November 2017; Accepted 27 November 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: felixodh@uni-bonn.de (F. Op de Hipt). Catena 163 (2018) 63–77 0341-8162/ © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. T