Environmental Challenges 6 (2022) 100439

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Environmental Challenges
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envc

Assessing climate change projections in the Volta Basin using the

CORDEX-Africa climate simulations and statistical bias-correction
Kofi A. Yeboah a,∗, Komlavi Akpoti b, Amos T. Kabo-bah a, Eric A. Ofosu a,b, Ebenezer K. Siabi c,
Eric M. Mortey c,d, Samuel A. Okyereh b
a
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Energy and Natural Resources, P. O. Box 214, Sunyani, Ghana
b
Regional Center for Energy and Environmental Sustainability (RCEES), University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR), P. O. Box 214, Sunyani, Ghana
c
Earth Observation Research and Innovation Center (EORIC), University of Energy and Natural Resources, P. O. Box 214, Sunyani, Ghana
d
Faculty of Science and Techniques, Doctoral Research Program in Climate Change and Energy (DRP-CCE) of the West African Science Service Center on Climate
Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL), Université Abdou Moumouni, P.O. Box 10662, Niamey 8000, Niger

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: Climate change potential impacts are evaluated through the changes in the local and regional climate. However,
Climate change Global and Regional Climate simulated outputs do not often capture these changes well, hampering their direct
CMIP5 simulations applicability. Impact studies using coarse resolution data require bias-correction of climate variables, a process
RCPs scenarios
that minimizes the discrepancy between observed and simulated climate variables. This study assessed climate
Volta Basin
projections in the Volta Basin using an ensemble of 4 Regional Climate Models under the Representative Concen-
CMhyd
Bias-correction tration Pathways-RCPs 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios in the CORDEX-Africa datasets. These datasets were bias-corrected
using the Climate Model data for hydrologic modeling tool (CMhyd) and 27-years of Climate Forecast System
Reanalysis data. The performances of the ensemble bias-corrected precipitation ranged from 97-99%, 93-99%,
70-485mm, and -9-5% for R2 , NSE, RMSE, and PBIAS respectively. TMAX bias-correction performances ranged
from 65-99%, 27-99%, 0-4°C and -2-7% for R2 , NSE, RMSE and PBIAS respectively. For TMIN, the performances
ranged from 91–99%, 91–99%, 0-1°C and 0-1% for R2 , NSE, RMSE and PBIAS respectively. The annual projected
change in precipitation under RCP4.5 and 8.5 indicated a decrease in precipitation for the near (the 2020s),
the mid-century (2050s), and the end far (2080s) with a relative increase from late November to January, a pe-
riod currently part of dry season period in the Volta Basin. This suggests that the basin could expect a potential
shift in the rainy season. The 12-month standard precipitation index suggests more frequent and longer drought
periods in the future. Changes in annual mean monthly maximum temperature revealed an increase under all
scenarios and throughout the century with an intensified increase by the end of the century under the higher CO2
concentration scenario (RCP 8.5). The study showed that under RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios, the Volta Basin will
experience frequent drought and extreme precipitation events, warmer days, and nights temperatures although
RCP 4.5 showed a relatively lower magnitude of these extremes. It is therefore important to emphasize the need
for strong adaptation to preserve water resources, limit negative impacts on energy and agricultural production,
and other ecosystems services in the Volta Basin.

1. Introduction
Anthropogenic activities have influenced our environment for cen-
turies. These impacts from the industrial revolution have extended
through global to local scales (Baede et al., 2001; Dai, 2011). Primarily,
land use and land cover change and burning of fossil fuel are respon-
sible for the increase of greenhouse gases concentration in the atmo-
sphere (De Matteis, 2019; Wuebbles and Jain, 2001). This distorts en-
ergy balances and increases the atmospheric temperature which results
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: quophius@gmail.com (K.A. Yeboah).
in changes in the climate. Africa is likely to have a greater mean annual
warming than the global annual average warming in all seasons with the
subtropics getting drier than the moist tropics (Anwar Al-Gamal et al.,
2009; Nikulin et al., 2018; James et al., 2013). Thus, climate change
impacts are widespread and are mostly the outcome of interlinked nat-
ural and anthropogenic activities which influence natural phenomena
in the atmosphere and the oceanic ecology (IPCC, 2014), presenting di-
verse consequences on climatic conditions and distribution worldwide.
Since a lot of factors including land surface, polar ice sheets, and the
sun, among others, instigate global climate conditions, it becomes im-
perative for computer programs to be built so that adequate data can
be harnessed, stored, and employed in simulating these complex pro-
cesses. Therefore, the advent of climate models serves an important role

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envc.2021.100439
Received 31 August 2021; Received in revised form 31 December 2021; Accepted 31 December 2021
2667-0100/© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
K.A. Yeboah, K. Akpoti, A.T. Kabo-bah et al.
in assessing global change studies. The impacts of climate change and
variability are well evaluated by the use of these climate models. In
most applications, combinations of several Global Circulation Models
(GCMs) are employed to complement climate forecasting owing to the
different responses/sensitivities exhibited by the various type of GCMs
(Chokkavarapu and Mandla, 2019), (Knutti et al., 2010).
Owing to the challenges for climate models in simulating cli-
matic variability at a much finer resolution for local area applica-
tions (Roux et al., 2018; Mustafa et al., 2016), downscaling serves
as an alternative for assessing variability in climate at the local level
(Benestad, 2004; Li et al., 2012). This is because GCMs outputs exhibit
coarse spatial resolution which hinders the ability of the user to em-
ploy them in their raw state (Attique, 2018). Therefore, downscaling of
GCM outputs becomes very crucial as both atmospheric and meteorolog-
ical data could be harnessed into a finer format capable of enhancing
the quality of hydrological simulations. Generally, there are two ma-
2
Environmental Challenges 6 (2022) 100439
Fig. 1. Volta Basin with virtual stations
created for the climate change assessment,
the climatic zones and the hydrological
networks. The 24 grid points (virtual cli-
mate stations) were used to extract the Na-
tional Centers for Environmental Prediction
(NCEP) Climate Forecast System Reanalysis
(CFSR) data.
jor downscaling approaches, namely dynamic and statistical downscal-
ing (Fowler et al., 2007). Dynamic downscaling works by leveraging
GCMs results through the lateral boundary conditions of Regional Cli-
mate Models (RCMs) for a wider area to a desired catchment of interest.
Thus, information on the local scale is extracted from GCMs at a coarser
or relatively finer resolution. However, dynamic downscaling demands
a lot of computational time and cost (Gulacha and Mulungu, 2016).
The process is facilitated by the use of related equations built on the
principle of continuity, momentum, and thermodynamic processes that
also consider geographical features of the defined location (Roux et al.,
2018). However, challenges associated with dynamical downscaling, in
terms of its intensified timescales for performing computations, which
also helps in coming by an optimum resolution, are taken care of by sta-
tistical downscaling approaches. Statistical downscaling works by fore-
casting local climate in a process that establishes a link between both
global and local scale parameters (Gudmundsson et al., 2012). The po-
K.A. Yeboah, K. Akpoti, A.T. Kabo-bah et al.
Fig. 2. Bias correction framework in the Climate Model data for hydrologic modelling (CMhyd)(Modified from Rathjens et al., 2016)
tency of statistical downscaling produces more precise results in compar-
ison to results yielded by dynamical downscaling models. Meanwhile,
other studies Guyennon et al. (2013) reported that, due to the larger
volume of data often required and involved in most climatological eval-
uations, it becomes adequate for both regional dynamical and statistical
downscaling models to be integrated so that a more concrete and robust
prediction about trends in climate could be ascertained.
Comparing the statistical and dynamical downscaling methods,
Gutmann et al. (2012) highlighted some of the uncertainties linked with
the use of statistical downscaling in forecasting climatic events. Results
showed high domain average precipitation to the original model. How-
ever, they noticed that the changes in spatial distribution could not
be matched with those derived through the use of dynamic downscal-
ing. Jang and Kavvas (2014), examining the variability of precipitation
using the two methods showed that the statistical downscaling tech-
nique only interpolated patterns from the coarse grid point from the
GCM but was unable to demonstrate the spatial variability of the pre-
cipitation fields. This is because the method failed to include the re-
lationship that prevails among the outputs of GCM and local geomor-
phological features. According to Gutmann et al. (2012), if the goal of
an evaluation exercise is to predict precipitation, then the use of sta-
tistical downscaling approaches becomes necessary for average water
availability and spatial coverage to be enhanced. However, employing
statistical downscaling will be unable to alter how changes to the spa-
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Environmental Challenges 6 (2022) 100439
tial coverage of rainfall can be appreciated unless additional methods
for statistical downscaling are considered. Comparison of the major ap-
proaches for downscaling helps to understand and to select the appro-
priate method fit for use in an analysis being conducted in a terrain.
Due to the limitation associated with both approaches, the selection
of a downscaling approach should capitalize much on the specific ap-
plication in addition to the goal(s) of the evaluation. Some statistical
downscaling applications are accepted for monthly rainfall forecasting
(Attique, 2018) as they can provide the best means fit for rainfall cycle
simulations and prediction in scenarios where in-situ data is difficult to
come by and also where in-situ data demonstrate irregularities in time
series.
Also, poor representation regarding the spatial resolution in
the RCMs results in biases in the simulated climate parameters
(Rauscher et al., 2010), making bias correction very essential for many
hydrological applications (Piani et al., 2010). This is because Regional
climate models (RCMs) are known to exhibit systematic biases in precip-
itation and other climatic parameters (Gudmundsson et al., 2012). The
reasons for such biases include systematic model errors caused by im-
perfect conceptualization, discretization, and spatial averaging within
grid cells making the use of RCM simulations as direct input data for
hydrological impact studies more complicated (Teutschbein and Seib-
ert, 2012). Bias-corrections approaches are based on statistical trans-
formations, which attempt to adjust the distribution of modeled data
K.A. Yeboah, K. Akpoti, A.T. Kabo-bah et al.
Fig. 3. Seasonal cycle of precipitation bias correction for the four climatic zones (arid, semi-arid, dry sub-humid and humid) in the Volta Basin. The corresponding
plots b, d, f and h represent the average over the climatic zones while plots a, c, e and g represent individual stations selected within the climatic zones.
such that it closely resembles the observed climatology. The process was
conducted for precipitation and temperature for many hydrological and
agricultural applications (Piani et al., 2010; Worku et al., 2020).
Although Africa is projected to be highly affected by global cli-
mate change due to low adaptation capacity and resilience, there are
limited downscaling and bias-correction studies over the continent
(Joubert and Hewitson, 1997; Souvignet et al., 2010). There is lim-
ited information on climate change effects on water resources in Sub-
Saharan African Countries (Kundzewicz et al., 2008) although there is
a significant increase in research on climate change modelling in recent
years (Souvignet et al., 2010; Di Baldassarre et al., 2011). The previ-
ous bias-correction studies on the Volta Basin either considered the past
climate change (Okafor et al., 2019) or at the sub-section of the basin
(Siabi et al., 2021). In this study, we assessed the future climate change
of the Volta Basin by performing a bias correction of the CORDEX-Africa
dataset for precipitation and temperature. We considered the entire
basin using a set of 24 grid points representing virtual stations based
on the National Centres for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Climate
Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) data, which is frequently used as an
alternative for data scare basins (Dile and Srinivasan, 2014; Fuka et al.,
2014). The results from this study can support the hydrological impact
4
Environmental Challenges 6 (2022) 100439
studies of climate change in the Volta Basin. The results also provide
evidence of the changing climate to support the climate actions of the
Sustainable Development Goal 13 of the United Nations.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study area description
The Volta River Basin is a major river basin in West Africa with a sur-
face area of 414,000 km2 (Owusu and Waylen, 2009). The Basin can be
divided into four main climatic zones, including arid, semi-arid, dry-sub
humid, and humid (Fig. 1). The rainfall pattern of the basin is influenced
by the South-North migration of the West African Monsoon. The major-
ity of the Basin lies in Ghana (40%) and serves major socio-economic ac-
tivities such as hydropower generation and agriculture. The Volta Basin
contributes significantly to the economic development of the riparian
countries, especially Ghana and Burkina Faso, where the basin covers
more than 60% of their surface areas; home to 47.6% of the population
in Burkina Faso and 35.5% of the population in Ghana. The basin also
has some critical infrastructures such as the Akosombo, Kpong, Bui, and
K.A. Yeboah, K. Akpoti, A.T. Kabo-bah et al.
Fig. 4. Comparison of the ensemble of the raw simulation, the observed and the bias corrected precipitation daily series as measured by the mean, standard deviation
(STD), coefficient of variation (CV), 90th percentile (X90) for the months of March (dry season) and August (wet season) across the various climatic zones.
Bagre Dams for electricity and irrigation and other multitudes of small
reservoirs (Akpoti et al., 2022; Awotwi et al., 2021).
2.2. Observed climate data
Hydro-climatic data scarcity is a major limiting factor in water
resource modelling. In the case of the Volta Basin, there are lim-
ited climate stations within the basin. Even for the existing ones, the
available data are full of gaps. Previous studies have considered the
grid climate data sources as an alternative for in-situ data availability
(Awotwi et al., 2021). In this study, we considered the National Centres
for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Climate Forecast System Reanal-
ysis (CFSR) data (https://globalweather.tamu.edu/). The data which is
available at daily time step for the various climatic parameters including
precipitation and temperature is simulated for 36 years of 1979 through
2014 for various climatic par. The data has successfully been previously
used for hydrological simulation in a data scare condition (Dile and
Srinivasan, 2014) with good results comparable to the observed station
data (Fuka et al., 2014)
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Environmental Challenges 6 (2022) 100439
2.3. CODEX-Africa simulated data and climate scenarios
To better understand and estimate plausible future climate, there
are diverse Global and Regional Climate Models (GCMs and RCMs)
now available to simulate both precipitation and temperature to a
basin or local levels, including the Coordinated Regional Climate
Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) climate simulations experiments
(Giorgi et al., 2009). Future climate projection data for precipita-
tion, minimum and maximum temperatures from the CORDEX project
were considered. The dataset is based on 4 forcing GCMs, includ-
ing the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology Earth System Model
version 1.2 (MPI-ESM1.2) (Mauritsen et al., 2019), the Centre Na-
tional de Recherches Météorologiques (CNRM-CM5) (Voldoire et al.,
2013), the Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model Earth System
(HadGEM2‐ES) (Jones et al., 2011) and the GFDL NOAA’s Earth Sys-
tem Models (ESMs) (Dunne et al., 2020). The surface process of the Cli-
mate Limited-Area Modeling (CCLM4) and the Rossby Centre regional
atmospheric climate model (RCA4) (Samuelsson et al., 2015) were the
downscaling RCM for the 4 GCMs simulations.
Two emission scenarios of the Representative Concentration Path-
ways (RCPs), namely RCPs (4.5 and 8.5) of the Fifth Phase of the Climate
K.A. Yeboah, K. Akpoti, A.T. Kabo-bah et al.
Fig. 5. Seasonal cycle of maximum temperature bias correction for the four climatic zones (arid, semi-arid, dry sub-humid and humid) in the Volta Basin. The
corresponding plots b, d, f and h represent the average over the climatic zones while plots a, c, e and g represent individual virtual climate station selected within
the climatic zones.
Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) (Taylor et al., 2012) of the IPCC
Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) were considered. They represent green-
house gas and aerosol concentrations as well as land use pathways, char-
acterized by the radiative forcing values of 4.5 and 8.5 W/m2 produced
by CO2 emissions by the end of the 21st century (San José et al., 2016).
The IPCC’s AR5 report described RCP 4.5 as an intermediate scenario
where the emissions peak around 2040, then decline afterward to reach
roughly half of the levels of 2050 by 2100. On the other hand, RCP 8.5
pathway is considered as the worst-case scenario in case efforts to re-
duce emissions by 2100 would have failed. The future scenarios were
divided into 3 different time windows with 30 years intervals includ-
ing 2010 to 2039 (the 2020s), 2040 to 2069 (2050s), and 2070 to 2100
(2080s).
2.4. The statistical bias correction procedure
In this study, we used the CMhyd (Climate Model data for hydro-
logic modelling) tool, designed to provide bias-correction of simulated
climate data obtained from GCMs and RCMs (Rathjens et al., 2016).
Bias correction procedures employ a transformation algorithm for ad-
justing climate model output with the assumption that the correction
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Environmental Challenges 6 (2022) 100439
algorithm and its parametrization for current climate conditions are to
be valid for future conditions as well. The tool has been widely used
for bias-correction of precipitation and temperature for various applica-
tions (Tian et al., 2020; de Carvalho et al., 2021; Andrade et al., 2021).
The overall procedure in the bias correction as adopted in this paper is
described in Fig. 2 with specific details below.
2.4.1. Data preparation
The observed precipitation and temperature (minimum and Maxi-
mum) are saved as separate ASCII files in the same directory. The files
contain the start date of the time series data followed by the values for
daily recordings of the specific parameter under consideration. A loca-
tion file, which contains the longitude and latitude, elevation, and name
of each of the data files contained in the directory.
2.4.2. Data extraction
The metadata of a netCDF file is used by the model to locate the grid
cells of the climate model which overlay the location of the gauge. The
model further converts temperature and precipitation data into degrees
Celsius and millimeters respectively.
K.A. Yeboah, K. Akpoti, A.T. Kabo-bah et al.
Fig. 6. Comparison of the ensemble of the raw simulation, the observed and the bias corrected daily series of maximum temperature as measured by the mean,
standard deviation (STD), 10th (X10) and 90th(X90) percentiles for the months of March (dry season) and August (wet season) across the various climatic zones.
2.4.3. Pre-processing
CMHyd preprocesses the data before performing bias correction. This
is to ensure the identification of the location of the grid cells of the cli-
mate model to the gauges and then check the proximity of the center
of the grid cell and the location of the gauge. The observed and mod-
eled historical data are then compared to evaluate the performance. The
period for the observed and historical data are then overlapped.
2.4.4. Bias Correction
CMhyd tool has 8 different bias-correction methods including
linear scaling (multiplicative and additive), delta change correction
(multiplicative and additive), precipitation local intensity scaling,
power transformation of precipitation, variance scaling of temper-
ature, and distribution mapping of precipitation and temperature.
For this study, Distribution Mapping (-quantile mapping) was used.
Zhang et al. (2018) noted Distribution mapping as performing best af-
ter employing five bias-correction methods. This bias correction method
corrects the distribution function of the simulated RCM values to con-
form with the observed distribution function (Teutschbein and Seib-
ert, 2012). The occurrence of the distribution of precipitation and tem-
perature was shifted using the transfer function of simulated RCM data
7
Environmental Challenges 6 (2022) 100439
based on monthly mean value (Zhang et al., 2018; Sennikovs and
Bethers, 2009). For the precipitation events, the Gamma distribution
developed by Thom (1958) with shape parameters of ‘’𝛼’’ and ‘’𝛽’’ have
been noted to be more suitable. The Gamma distribution has been em-
ployed in several studies (Piani et al., 2010); Block et al., 2009; Ines and
Hansen, 2006; Katz, 1999; Watterson and Dix, 2003) and has been
proven to be more suitable for precipitation analysis studies. The model
can be represented mathematically as:
−𝑥
1
𝑓𝛾 (𝑥|𝛼, 𝛽) = 𝑥𝛼−1 . .𝑒 𝛽 ; 𝑥 ≥ 0; 𝛼, 𝛽 > 0 (1)
𝛽 𝛼 .Γ(𝛼)
where Γ is the Gamma function; and 𝛼 and 𝛽 are the form and scale
parameters, respectively. Gaussian distribution with parameter ‘’μ’’ and
scale parameter ‘’𝜎’’ has been proven to be the best fit for temperature
events. This has been confirmed by several studies by using the distribu-
tion (Schoenau and Kehrig, 1990; Bisht et al., 2020). Detailed informa-
tion about the Gamma and Gaussian distribution can be accessed here
Teutschbein and Seibert (2012).
K.A. Yeboah, K. Akpoti, A.T. Kabo-bah et al. Environmental Challenges 6 (2022) 100439

Fig. 7. Seasonal cycle of minimum temperature bias correction for the four climatic zones (arid, semi-arid, dry sub-humid and humid) in the Volta Basin. The
corresponding plots b, d, f and h represent the average over the climatic zones while plots a, c, e and g represent individual virtual climate station selected within
the climatic zones.

2.5. Change analysis and extreme indices

( )
Δ2080𝑠 = 𝑋2080𝑠 − 𝑋𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒 (7)
The ensemble means from the 4 models for the precipitation, TMIN,
and TMAX of the future 3 periods (the 2020s, 2050s, and 2080s) Where Δ represents the relative or absolute changes, 𝑋 represents
were compared with the baseline period (1979-2005). The underlying Precipitation, TMAX, or TMIN and base represents the reference period
anomaly percentage differences for precipitation were computed using (1979-2005). The increase and decrease of the future time-period vari-
Eqs. (2)–(4) and absolute changes for temperatures were obtained using ables are indicated by positive and negative anomalies. In addition, we
Eqs. (5)–(7) for the 2020s, 2050s, and 2080s periods: considered four indices for future extreme climate conditions character-
( ) ization including the 12-months standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)
𝑋2020𝑠 − 𝑋𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒 × 100 to measure potential future drought conditions, the total annual precipi-
Δ2020𝑠 = (2)
𝑋𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒 tation contribution from extremely wet days (R99pTOT), the amount of
( ) hot days (TX90p) and warm nights (TN90p). The indices are computed
𝑋2050𝑠 − 𝑋𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒 × 100
Δ2050𝑠 = (3) using the ClimPACT2 software (Alexander and Herold, 2016). The de-
𝑋𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒 scription of these indices is provided in Table 1.
( )
𝑋2080𝑠 − 𝑋𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒 × 100
Δ2080𝑠 = (4) 2.6. Bias correction accuracy assessment
𝑋𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒
( ) The evaluation metrics used in this study include the coefficient of
Δ2020𝑠 = 𝑋2020𝑠 − 𝑋𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒 (5)
determination (R2 ) (Eq. (8)), Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient (NSE) (Eq. (9)),
Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) (Eq. (10)), and Percent bias (Pbias)
( )
Δ2050𝑠 = 𝑋2050𝑠 − 𝑋𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒 (6) (Eq. (11)) to assess the accuracy of the bias-corrected model. RMSE was

8
K.A. Yeboah, K. Akpoti, A.T. Kabo-bah et al. Environmental Challenges 6 (2022) 100439

Fig. 8. Comparison of the ensemble of the raw simulation, the observed and the bias corrected daily series of minimum temperature as measured by the mean,
standard deviation (STD), 10th (X10) and 90th(X90) percentiles for the months of March (dry season) and August (wet season) across the various climatic zones.

Table 1
Indices of daily precipitation and temperature extremes considered (PCP = Annual total precipitation ≥ 1mm; r99p = Total annual precipitation from
very heavy rain days).

Indices Names Definitions Units

SPI Standardized Precipitation Index Measure of “drought” using the Standardised Precipitation Index on unitless
time scales 12 months.

R99pTOT Contribution from extremely wet days 100∗ r99p / PCP %

TX90p Amount of hot days Percentage of days when TMAX > 90th percentile %

TN90p Amount of warm nights Percentage of days when TMIN > 90th percentile %

utilized as the goodness of fit technique to indicate the standard devia- more accurate when Pbias approaches 0.
tion of the model in simulating the observed data. The model performs ∑𝑁
better when RMSE is smaller. The R2 which ranges from 0 to 1 was (𝑦𝑜𝑏𝑠 − 𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑚 )2
𝑅2 = 1 − ∑𝑖𝑁=1 (8)
used to evaluate the goodness of fit of the models and observed data. (𝑦𝑜𝑏𝑠 − 𝑦𝑜𝑏𝑠 )2
𝑖=1
Where one means a perfect fit of the model. The NSE ranges from -∞
to 1, where ≥0.5 are satisfactory, and values ≥ 0.7 are a very good fit [ ∑𝑁 ]
(Nash and Sutcliffe, 1970). The Pbias was used to evaluate whether the 𝑖=1 (𝑦𝑜𝑏𝑠 − 𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑚 )2
𝑁𝑆𝐸 = 1 − ∑𝑁 (9)
model under or overestimated the observed data. The model becomes
𝑖=1 (𝑦𝑜𝑏𝑠 − 𝑦̄𝑜𝑏𝑠 )2

9
K.A. Yeboah, K. Akpoti, A.T. Kabo-bah et al. Environmental Challenges 6 (2022) 100439

Fig. 9. Mean seasonal change of precipitation over the periods 2020s (2010–2039), 2050s (2040–2069) and 2080s (2070–2100) for the four climatic zones and one
selected corresponding virtual climate station for each zone.

√ deviation to the mean was computed for precipitation. For simplifica-

∑𝑁 tion, we presented the results of only March, corresponding to the dry
𝑖=1 (𝑦𝑜𝑏𝑠 − 𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑚 )
2
𝑅𝑀𝑆𝐸 = (10) season and the August for wet season in the basin.
𝑁

∑𝑁 ( )
𝑖=1𝑦𝑜𝑏𝑠 − 𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑚 3. Results and discussions
𝑃 𝐵𝐼𝐴𝑆 = ∑𝑁 ( ) × 100 (11)
𝑖=1 𝑦𝑜𝑏𝑠
3.1. Performance of the bias corrections
Where 𝑦𝑜𝑏𝑠 is the observed data, 𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑚 is the predicted data, 𝑦̄𝑜𝑏𝑠 is
the average of observed data, 𝑁 is the number of observations. In ad- Although the general profile (distribution) of the month-on-month
dition to these metrics, we used basic statistics and distribution metrics distribution of the precipitation is well captured by the GCMs, the en-
to assess the performance of the bias correction following the example semble of the raw simulations overestimated the observed data for PCP
in Teutschbein and Seibert (2012). These metrics, evaluated on daily (Fig. 3). The bias correction for precipitation statistics shows good re-
precipitation, minimum and maximum temperatures include the mean, sults with 97-99%, 93-99%, 70-485mm, and -9-5% for R2 , NSE, RMSE,
the standard deviation (STD), 10th, and 90th percentiles (X10, X90). In and PBIAS respectively across the climatic zones of the Volta Basin
addition, the coefficient of variation (CV) or the ratio of the standard (Table 2). Comparing the mean of the daily precipitation for dry and

10
K.A. Yeboah, K. Akpoti, A.T. Kabo-bah et al.
Fig. 10. Average of 12-months standard precipitation index (SPI) over the climatic zones for the period 2006-2100 with the shades showing the three future periods:
the 2020s (2010–2039), the 2050s (2040–2069) and the 2080s (2070–2100).
wet seasons, the bias correction performed well for both seasons across
the climatic zones (Fig. 4). The mean values vary from 0.5-3mm in the
dry season with the arid zone having the highest value as well as the
highest standard deviation. The wet season mean values showed less
variability ranging from 3–7mm with relative variability across the cli-
matic zones. The coefficient of variation, which measures the level of
dispersion around the mean, shows a higher value for the bias correc-
tion as compared to observed data for both dry and wet seasons. The
90th percentiles show similar distribution as in the case of the mean
values.
In contrary to the precipitation estimates, the raw GCMs simulations
of TMAX are largely below the observed TMAX values even though the
shapes of the monthly variations are slightly captured (Fig. 5). TMAX
bias-correction performances ranged from 65-99%, 27-99%, 0-4°C and
-2-7% for R2 , NSE, RMSE and PBIAS respectively (See Table 2). Also,
the bias correction and observed values closely match in terms of the
mean values for both dry and wet seasons (but maximum values are
higher in the dry season) (Fig. 6). A similar pattern can be observed for
the 10th and 90th percentiles except for the standard deviation which
shows higher variability.
11
Environmental Challenges 6 (2022) 100439
For the minimum temperature, the raw simulated values are over-
estimated for the arid zone but with mix pattern for the other climatic
zones (see Fig. 7). For these zones, the raw simulated data overestimated
the relatively low minimum temperature while underestimating the rel-
atively high minimum temperatures (Fig. 7c–h). The performance of
bias correction on the minimum temperature shows very good metrics
values, ranging from 91–99%, 91–99%, 0-1°C and 0-1% for R2 , NSE,
RMSE, and PBIAS respectively across the climatic zones. The perfor-
mance of all the models was generally good after the application of the
distribution mapping bias correction (See Table 2). Fig. 8 shows the
comparable distribution for mean, 10th, and 90th percentiles for the
minimum temperature with relatively small differences between dry and
wet seasons and among the simulated raw, observed, and bias-corrected
values. However, the standard deviation values for the bias correction
across the climatic zones show a higher dispersion in the dry season
compared to the wet season.
Figs. 3–8 showed that after the introduction of the distribution map-
ping bias correction, the discrepancies in the models were efficiently
alleviated. The distribution mapping bias correction was able to signif-
icantly enhance the bias-corrected PCP, TMAX, and TMIN. However,
K.A. Yeboah, K. Akpoti, A.T. Kabo-bah et al.
Fig. 11. Average contribution from extremality wet days (R99pTOT) over the climatic zones for the period 2006-2100 with the shades showing the three future
periods: the 2020s (2010–2039), the 2050s (2040–2069) and the 2080s (2070–2100). The red lines depict the 5-year simple moving averages of the R99pTOT series
(blue lines).
there were slight discrepancies in the bias-corrected data. The bias-
correction procedure also showed some level of uncertainties as shown
by the PBIAS and RMSE values for each variable across the climatic
zones. Such uncertainties were previously observed in other studies in
the case of the distribution bias correction method and Local Intensity
Scaling (Zhang et al., 2018). In other cases, the power transformation
bias correction method improved the variability statistics while it was
found to poorly adjust the probability, and at the same time, the Linear
scaling bias correction method was able to effectively eliminate the bias
in the mean precipitation (Zhang et al., 2018). Therefore, all the other
bias correction methods such as Local Intensity Scaling, Power transfor-
mation, and Distributive mapping showed their respective advantages
but also uncertainties in the bias correction of precipitation and temper-
ature time series. Still, the results of this study showed a need to employ
bias correction to raw RCMs or GCMs datasets before deploying them
for any climate change impact assessment.
Comparing seven (7) bias correction methods for hydrological appli-
cations, Luo et al. (2018) affirmed that precipitation presents poorer ac-
curacy during periods of intensified rainfall which is exceedingly better
than periods of little/no precipitation. Similarly applying bias correction
12
Environmental Challenges 6 (2022) 100439
to RCM for hydrology, Willkofer et al. (2018) showed that the quantile
mapping method out-perform linear scaling and linear intensity scaling
and therefore most suitable for climate change impact assessment on
catchment hydrology. Also quantifying the impacts of climate change
on streamflow dynamics, Zhang et al. (2018) showed that the distribu-
tion mapping and the variance scaling bias correction performed slightly
better in the frequency-based statistics for temperature when compared
to the linear scaling bias correction. They noted, however, that the vari-
ance scaling bias correction performed slightly better than distribution
mapping for time series-based statistics for temperature. Simple-to-use
techniques such as linear scaling are powerful for quantile mapping,
especially in performance evaluation at coarser temporal resolution
(Shrestha et al., 2017). A study applied seven different techniques (Delta
change, Scaling, Empirical Quantile Mapping — EQM, Adjusted Quan-
tile Mapping —AQM, Gamma Distribution Quantile Mapping —GQM,
Gamma-Generalized Pareto Distribution Quantile Mapping—GPQM and
inter-sectoral impact model intercomparison project—ISIMIP) to correct
the precipitation of three RCMs (Ezéchiel et al., 2016). Scaling, EQM,
and AQM produced results that were highly acceptable for the daily,
monthly, and yearly timescales. The difficulty in rainfall bias correction
K.A. Yeboah, K. Akpoti, A.T. Kabo-bah et al.
Fig. 12. Mean monthly change of maximum temperature over the periods 2020s (2010–2039), 2050s (2040–2069) and 2080s (2070–2100) for the four climatic
zones and one selected corresponding virtual climate station for each zone.
in time and space may be associated with changeability and bias sta-
tionarity of precipitation (Rauscher et al., 2010; Maraun et al., 2010).
Thus, different combinations of RCMs produce better output in terms of
the performance of bias correction (Ezéchiel et al., 2016).
3.2. Monthly precipitation changes under RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios
The mean monthly projected changes in precipitation under the RCPs
4.5 and 8.5 for the selected stations and climatic zones are shown in
Fig. 9. Precipitation is projected to generally decrease in most of the
months under both scenarios. However, precipitation is expected to in-
crease from October to January under both RCPs 4.5 and 8.5 and across
all climatic zones. Major precipitation events are expected to occur
in November and December. This period of the year normally corre-
sponds to either the dry season in the majority of the basin (November-
13
Environmental Challenges 6 (2022) 100439
February) or the offset of the rainy season (October and first weeks of
November). The increase in precipitation in the period for the months
of October-January showed that the future rainy season may shift to-
ward a period initially known as the dry season. Also, changes across
periods (the 2020s, 2030s, and 2080s) and greenhouse gas concentra-
tions scenarios do not show a clear pattern in terms of the magnitude of
change. This clearly shows the erratic nature of precipitation variabil-
ity and associated uncertainties in its predictions by the various GCMs.
These uncertainties may be attributed due to a lack of reliable observa-
tion systems used in the GCM (Sylla et al., 2016). Also, the 12-months
standardized precipitation index (SPI) showed coexistence of dry and
wet years across the basin (Fig. 10) with no systematic difference across
the climatic zones in the basin. However, the closer analysis showed a
significant precipitation decrease with frequent dry years. A previous
study showed that precipitation may reduce within the high-level GHG
K.A. Yeboah, K. Akpoti, A.T. Kabo-bah et al.
Fig. 13. Mean monthly change of minimum temperature over the 2020s (2010–2039), 2050s (2040–2069) and 2080s (2070–2100) for the four climatic zones and
one selected corresponding virtual climate station for each zone.
forcing scenario by the end of the 21st century and an increase in both
dry spell length and extreme precipitation intensity (Sylla et al., 2016;
Dosio et al., 2020). In our study, the precipitation due to extremely wet
days greater than the 99th percentile (R99pTOT) indicates that the an-
nual amount of precipitation contributed on days exceeding the long-
term 99th percentile has become more frequent as shown by the noisy
spikes in Fig. 11. However, the trends in R99pTOT did not show any
significant increase in magnitude. Thus, high frequency is the possible
dominant feature in the future of the extreme precipitation in the Volta
Basin.
14
Environmental Challenges 6 (2022) 100439
3.3. Mean monthly change in maximum and minimum temperatures under
RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios
Fig. 12 present the mean monthly changes in TMAX under the
RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. Generally, there is an expected increase in TMAX
across all stations. The increase in TMAX is becoming greater and more
extensive in the high-level GHG forcing scenario by the end of the 21st
century as shown in other studies (Sylla et al., 2016). The temperature
will increase from the near future (the 2020s) and intensify throughout
the century with the highest values in the 2080s. The TMAX changes
K.A. Yeboah, K. Akpoti, A.T. Kabo-bah et al. Environmental Challenges 6 (2022) 100439

Fig. 14. Average amount of warm days (Tx90p) over the climatic zones for the period 2006–2100 with the shades showing the three future periods: the 2020s
(2010–2039), the 2050s (2040–2069) and the 2080s (2070–2100). The blue lines depict the 5-year simple moving averages of the Tx90p series (red lines).

Table 2 sonal perspective, the arid zone showed little variations with relatively
Bias-correction model performance for precipitation (PCP), maximum tem- lower warming in the months of July-August-September. In the other cli-
perature (TMAX) and minimum temperature (TMIN). matic zones (semi-arid, dry sub-humid, and humid), the TMAX changes
Climatic zones Statistics PCP TMAX TMIN peak in the months of April-May-June. However, the station-wise anal-
ysis showed that the TMAX changes may be location-specific. Similarly,
Arid R2 0.97 0.65 0.99
NSE 0.93 0.27 0.99
TMIN is projected to increase across all the selected stations and cli-
RMSE 485.61 3.49 0.02 matic zones under RCP4.5 and 8.5 (Fig. 13). TMIN is expected to be
P-BIAS -9.20 6.90 0.06 higher from October to January under the RCP4.5 except in the dry sub-
Semi- R2 0.99 0.99 0.99 humid zone where TMIN increases in almost all the months. Stations in
arid NSE 0.99 0.99 0.99
the Arid zone under the RCP8.5 repeated the same trend. Relatively,
RMSE 155.77 0.01 0.21
P-BIAS 0.60 0.11 -0.30 the projected TMIN under the RCP8.5 is higher than those projected un-
Dry R2 0.99 0.94 0.91 der the RCP 4.5. TMIN is projected to increase throughout the months.
sub- NSE 0.99 0.86 0.91 However, the highest TMIN is expected to occur in the 2080s in all the
humid RMSE 69.66 1.40 0.89
selected stations and climatic zones. The expected change projected by
P-BIAS 4.90 2.90 0.20
Humid R2 0.99 0.98 0.98
RCMs under both scenarios is consistent with the findings of the Inter-
NSE 0.99 0.95 0.94 governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which indicated a global
RMSE 186.18 0.83 0.83 temperature increase between 1.4°C and 5.8°C by the end of the 21st
P-BIAS 5.10 -1.60 0.80 century with the double of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere with
expected great impending effect on the environment (IPCC, 2001).
The extreme indices in temperature in this study are depicted by the
are comparable across the climatic zones of the Volta Basin but the
amount of warm days due to warm days greater than the 90th percentile
arid zone may become warmer compared to other areas. From a sea-

15
K.A. Yeboah, K. Akpoti, A.T. Kabo-bah et al.
Fig. 15. Average amount of warm nights (TN90p) over the climatic zones for the period 2006–2100 with the shades showing the three future periods: the 2020s
(2010–2039), the 2050s (2040–2069) and the 2080s (2070–2100). The blue lines depict the 5-year simple moving averages of the TN90p series (red lines).
(Tx90p) and warm nights greater than the long term 90th percentile
(TN90p) are shown respectively in Figs. 14 and 15. For both indices,
the 2020s showed a constant and relatively negligible day and night
time warming for both RCP 4.5 and 8.5. The same profile can be de-
scribed for the 2050s except for the semi-arid region under RCP4.5 for
Tx90p and all climatic regions in the TN90p under RCP4.5. The clear
trend is the sharp increase in the day and night times temperatures by
the end of the century under both scenarios and across all climatic zones.
The night temperature TN90p is more sensitive to CO2 concentration in
the atmosphere with the scenario RCP8.5 showing a sharper and higher
warning compared to RCP4.5. The past climate analysis over West Africa
demonstrates that the seasonal-temperature-related indices show signif-
icant patterns of warming in all seasons (Barry et al., 2018). Studies
showed that The annual mean of daily minimum temperature has in-
creased more than the annual mean of daily maximum temperature lead-
ing to a decreasing trend in the diurnal temperature range while warm
days and warm nights have become more frequent, and cold days and
cold nights have become less frequent (Barry et al., 2018; New et al.,
2006). This trend will intensify in the future as shown in this study,
especially under the higher CO2 concentration scenarios with rather se-
rious potential impacts on the basin’s water availability, hydropower
production, and food security among others.
16
Environmental Challenges 6 (2022) 100439
3.4. The potential impact of changing climate in the Volta Basin
A global temperature increase between 1.4°C and 5.8°C was pro-
jected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by
the end of the Century if CO2 concentration doubles in the atmosphere,
with consequences on the environment (IPCC, 2001). Climate impact
studies indicated not only will climate change impact the environ-
ment but also socio-economic sectors, including agriculture and food
security (Akpoti et al., 2019), water resources, terrestrial ecosystems,
coastal zones, biodiversity, and human health (Mustafa et al., 2016;
James et al., 2013; IPCC, 2007). In Africa for example, Fifth Assessment
Report (AR5)[8] indicated changes in the climate system are further
affecting the quality and quantity of water resources. The Volta Basin
is therefore of no exception (Okafor et al., 2019) as storage in rivers,
lakes, and reservoirs and surface water will be affected by the changing
climate (Siabi et al., 2021; Obahoundje et al., 2017). Currently, climate-
sensitive sectors such as hydropower are being affected due to climate
change and variability impacts on water resources (Obahoundje et al.,
2017; Akpoti et al., 2016; Kabo-Bah et al., 2016), leading to sustainable
management challenges. Due to an increase in the day and night time
temperature, there is a risk of increasing species vulnerability to heat
stress and water budgets in the region as an increase in these indices are
K.A. Yeboah, K. Akpoti, A.T. Kabo-bah et al.
associated with hotter, drier conditions (Cox et al., 2020). An increase in
temperature is clearly a risk for crop yield and agricultural production
in the region (Akpoti et al., 2021; van Oort and Zwart, 2018). Thus, ef-
forts for global mitigation measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
and local adaptation measures are crucial in the coming years.
4. Conclusion
Climate change has gradually become the new normal in the 21st
century. However, the assessment of climate change in a data-scarce
basin is tedious. The study employed four RCMs in a statistical bias cor-
rection of precipitation and temperature in the Volta Basin. The results
showed that the precipitation pattern of the Volta Basin is decreasing
with time under the RCP4.5 and 8.5 along with a more frequent and
intense dry period. At the same time, maximum and minimum temper-
atures are expected to increase under both scenarios with higher day
and night time temperatures. In the context of the “business as usual”
conditions, the impacts of the changing climate on water resources, agri-
cultural productions, and biodiversity will be severe as the climate will
become hotter and drier. Whereas, population and industrialization in
the basin are ever-increasing, ground and surface water levels are de-
clining on account of reduction in precipitation on the one hand and
extreme water demand on the other hand. Thus, local, basin level, and
regional adaptation measures for water management and governance
will play a critical role in securing sustainable water resources in the
basin.
Acknowledgements
We declare that this study has not received any specific funding. We
thank the anonymous reviewers whose contributions have significantly
improved the earlier versions of this paper. We also thank the developers
of the CMhyd and ClimPACT2 software and the CORDEX-Africa climate
experiments used in this study.
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