Two decades of hydrologic modeling and predictions in the Congo River Basin: Progress and prospect for future investigations

Abstract:

Two decades of hydrologic modeling and predictions in the Congo River Basin: Progress and prospect for future investigations

Raphael M. Tshimanga

Congo Basin Water Resources Research Center – CRREBaC & Department of Natural Resources Management, University of Kinshasa, PO Box 117, KIN XI, Kinshasa, DRC. raphtm@yahoo.fr

Abstract

This paper provides an insight into the past two decades hydrologic modeling efforts and establish a diagnostic evaluation of these modeling studies, necessary to guide future scientific endeavors for the benefit of model comparison, knowledge advancement and information sharing in support of policy decision of water resources management in the Congo Basin. Two application cases, the GW-Pitman and WEAP models, are used to illustrate processes and challenges of hydrologic model applications in the Congo Basin. Overall, the analysis shows that there has been a great deal of efforts from the past modeling studies to address both data issues and process understanding and to establish models that represent the basin’s hydrologic processes. The analysis also shows that there is still a number of issues and uncertainties that should attract the attention of future modelling studies - right modeling for the right reason. In addition, a lack of catchment classification framework poses a challenge of evaluation of the uniqueness of areas, model comparison, transferability and generalization of information across the various scales in the basin, strategic development of objectives and standards, and design of monitoring strategies. We argue that many hydrologic model developments during the past two decades in the basin have been initiated mainly in an experimental phase, testing the models’ performance in a new and data scarce environment, and not for solving the real hydrologic and water resources management issues of day to day life. For this reason, it has been difficult to utilize the models in support of policy decision of river basin management and development. These findings collectively reveal that researchers need to change their mindsets towards appropriate approaches to modeling the hydrology and generating knowledge at appropriate scales for policy decision and management in the Congo Basin.

Keywords: Congo River Basin, Hydrologic modeling, Right modeling for the right reason