Surface/groundwater interactions in the Bani and Nakambe rivers, tributaries of the Niger and Volta basins, West Africa

The upper Niger and Volta rivers exhibit a great and highly contrasting variability of inter-annual runoff. The Bani River, the largest tributary to the Niger River in Mali, shows a dramatic decrease in runoff after the 1970s, with the result that many boreholes in the region have dried up since the drought began. In contrast, the Nakambe River (Upper Volta basin, in Burkina Faso) shows an increase in runoff for the same period, leading to unexpected flood peaks that damaged infrastructures. The contribution that the groundwater and its variability make to surface runoff variability is assessed in this study by comparing the data of the national groundwater monitoring networks of Mali and Burkina Faso to surface runoff. Several variables are compared at the basin scale: the date of the maximum level of the water table, the annual rainfall, discharge, low flows and depletion coefficients. Variability in the low flows of the Bani River is well correlated to a decrease in the water table. Since 1970, the greater decrease in runoff in comparison to the rainfall decrease is due to a reduction in the baseflow, related to the cumulated rainfall deficit. Concerning the Nakambe River, the runoff increase is not supported by a water table increase, but is due to the increase in runoff coefficient related to land degradation.