Water storage changes and balances in Africa observed by GRACE and hydrologic models

Abstract

Continental water storage plays a major role in Earth's climate system. However, temporal and spatial variations of continental water are poorly known, particularly in Africa. Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission provides an opportunity to estimate terrestrial water storage (TWS) variations at both continental and river-basin scales. In this paper, seasonal and secular variations of TWS within Africa for the period from January 2003 to July 2013 are assessed using monthly GRACE coefficients from three processing centers (Centre for Space Research, the German Research Centre for Geosciences, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory). Monthly grids from Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS)-1 and from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)-3B43 models are also used in order to understand the reasons of increasing or decreasing water storage. Results from GRACE processing centers show similar TWS estimates at seasonal timescales with some differences concerning inter-annual trend variations. The largest annual signals of GRACE TWS are observed in Zambezi and Okavango River basins and in Volta River Basin. An increasing trend of 11.60 mm/a is found in Zambezi River Basin and of 9 mm/a in Volta River Basin. A phase shift is found between rainfall and GRACE TWS (GRACE TWS is preceded by rainfall) by 2–3 months in parts of south central Africa. Comparing GLDAS rainfall with TRMM model, it is found that GLDAS has a dry bias from TRMM model.

Keywords

• Continental water storage
• Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)
• Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS)
• Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)
• Africa: terrestrial water storage (TWS)
• River basin