Wetlands International (https://www.wetlands.org/) received funding from the Dutch Embassy to conduct a comprehensive impact study on ecosystems and livelihoods in the Upper Niger Basin (UNB) with special focus on the Inner Niger Delta (IND) in Mali. The IND is one of the largest wetlands worldwide and is habitat to millions of migrating birds and provides around 1.5 million people with natural resources and livelihoods, such as fish, grasslands for cattle grazing, rice farming, and gardening.
The role of the PIK team involved in this phase of the project is the simulation of water resources under climate and water and land use change scenarios in the Upper Niger and Bani River basins in West Africa UNB. We investigate the impacts of reservoir management on the availability of water for irrigation, assess the feasibility of the plans to extend the irrigated area, and study the impacts of all management operations and climate change projections on inflow patterns into the Inner Niger Delta. The eco-hydrological model SWIM is used for this purpose. We will make use of four downscaled and bias-corrected global Earth System Models provided by ISI-MIP.
