Regional training workshop on bias correction methods for climatic, hydrological and agronomic data

🇨🇮 The RES'EAU network of African Centers of Excellence for sustainable water management held a regional training workshop from July 24 to 28, 2023 at the Pôle Scientifique et d'Innovation (PSI) of the Université Félix Houphouet-Boigny, African Center of Excellence on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Agriculture (CEA-CCBAD), Centre National de Calcul de Côte d'Ivoire (CNCCI) on the Bingerville Campus, Côte d'Ivoire.

Among the continents considered most exposed to climate change, Africa is one of the most vulnerable. With little capacity for adaptation, extreme climatic events often have a dramatic impact. African countries are vulnerable to climate change because of their agriculture-based economic models. Hence the importance of deepening our knowledge of regional climate trends and their impact on strategic sectors of activity for sustainable development.

However, regionalized projections cannot be used directly for impact studies at local level, due to two main problems: they are biased with respect to observations, and their spatial scale is too coarse for certain applications.

To bridge the gap between the information needed by experts for impact studies and the data available from regional climate, hydrological and agronomic models, bias correction and statistical downscaling methods are used to correct model variables and make the statistical distribution of daily data identical to the distribution observed at each point.

The aim of this training workshop, which brought together 20 researchers, was therefore to work on the reliable and corrected environmental data needed for policy development and evaluation, and to support adaptation, planning and risk and disaster reduction policies in 4 main areas: food security and agriculture; water and disasters; meteorology and climate; land use, coastal zones and forest management; and land use planning.

This capacity-building workshop is supported by the Centre d'Excellence Africain CEA-CCBAD, the ACE Partner program (RES'EAU project), the Programme d'Appui Stratégique à la Recherche Scientifique (PASRES), and ATOS-BULL. As part of the CNCCI's activities, and more specifically on the initiative of its Pôle de Simulation Numérique (PSN) "Climat et Développement Durable (CLIM2D)", led by Université Félix Houphouët Boigny and supported by IRD, CNRS, WASCAL and CEA-CCBAD, this workshop is being held under the aegis of the Direction Générale de la Recherche et de l'Innovation (MESRS), and CAMES.