Arid Climate in the Sirba Basin in Burkina Faso: Causes for Better Decisions in Land Use Planning

Abstract

The issue of climate change highlighted the dynamics of the global ecosystem especially in the atmosphere component. The perception of this phenomenon at the local level, in the villages, from serious scientific studies conditioned decisions on land use. Yet, these scientific truths evolve with time and their demonstration is different according to the space extent covered. It follows some decisions whose effectiveness has to be adapted in the light of the functioning of the considered phenomenon. Thus, it arises the issue of data quality in decision making in land planning. In the basin of the Sirba, there is an exacerbation of water-related conflicts, and this could be due to aridification that would be the consequence of a downward trend in precipitation. An explanation that governs the decisions made on water resources management in the basin of Sirba. The sole objective of this study is to check the veracity of aridification of the climate in the Sirba basin and the responsibility of the precipitation in this process. The methodology is based on a statistical analysis of the spatiotemporal evolution of the climate aridity and variables associated with it such as precipitation, temperature, number of rainy days and potential evapotranspiration. The results showed that the current aridification is not the fact of a decrease in precipitation, nor a reduction of the number of rainy days. It rains more and more often in the Sirba basin. However, the temperatures were higher as well as the losses by evapotranspiration. This interpretation different from the aridification phenomenon, draw the attention towards a revision of the solutions envisaged for solving of the problem. The decisions to reduce the evaporation should be preferred for more efficiency.