Journal of Water Resource and Protection, 2014, 6, 741-755
Published Online June 2014 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/jwarp
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jwarp.2014.68071
How to cite this paper: Bop, M., Amadou, A., Seidou, O., Kébé, C.M.F., Ndione, J.A., Sambou, S. and Sanda, I.S. (2014) Mod-
eling the Hydrological Dynamic of the Breeding Water Bodies in Barkedji’s Zone. Journal of Water Resource and Protection,
6, 741-755. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jwarp.2014.68071
Modeling the Hydrological Dynamic of the
Breeding Water Bodies in Barkedji’s Zone
Mamadou Bop
1
, Angelina Amadou
2
, Ousmane Seidou
2
, Cheikh Mouhamed Fadel Kébé
3
,
Jacques André Ndione
4
, Soussou Sambou
1
, Ibrah Seidou Sanda
5
1
Laboratoire d’Hydraulique et de Mécanique des Fluides, Département de Physique, Faculté des Sciences et
Techniques, Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, Dakar, Sénégal
2
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
3
Centre International de Formation et de Recherche en Energie Solaire (CIFRES), Département de Génie Civil,
Ecole Supérieure Polytechnique, Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Sénégal
4
Centre de Suivi Écologique (CSE), Dakar, Sénégal
5
Agrhymet Regional Center, Niamey, Niger
Email: mamadou1.bop@ucad.edu.sn , pape4121@yahoo.fr
Received 14 April 2014; revised 12 May 2014; accepted 8 June 2014
Copyright © 2014 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Abstract
Temporary water bodies’ dynamics play an important role in the epidemiological chain-borne
diseases such as Rift Valley fever as they are the main breeding habitats for mosquitoes. During
the rainy season, hundreds of these temporary water bodies appear and grow in the Ferlo region
(Senegal). The purpose of this research is to generate historical and future time series water levels
and areas at three temporary ponds located in the environment and health observatory of Bar-
kedji. A simple lumped hydrological model was developed for that purpose. It describes each pond
watershed as three interconnected reservoirs: canopy, surface storage and soil storage and uses a
linear relation to describe infiltration, percolation and baseflow (out of the soil reservoir). Given
the depth of the water table in the region, percolation out of the soil surface is considered lost.
Evapotraspiration was calculated using the Penman equation and withdraws water from the ca-
nopy and surface water reservoirs. Excess runoff from the soil storage is turned into runoff using a
triangular unit hydrograph. The calibration was done using two years of hydrological and climatic
data collected during the 2011 and 2012 rainy seasons. The calibration was successful and water
level in the two ponds was simulated with a Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 11.2 to 15 cm. Be-
cause of the short duration of the observation, no validation could be done. Given the excellent
agreement of the simulated and observed water levels during the calibration phase, the modeling
exercise was considered to be successful. The developed models were used to generate historical
time series of pond areas and correlate these to mosquitoes’ infestation in the region. Future time
series of pond areas were also generated using downscaled outputs of three regional climate
models from the AMMA ENSEMBLES experiment. The generated pond levels and areas are being