Articles | Volume 30, issue 14
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-4529-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-4529-2026
Research article
 | 
20 Jul 2026
Research article |  | 20 Jul 2026

The impact of calibration strategies on future evapotranspiration projections: a SWAT-T comparison of three hydrological modeling approaches in West Africa

Fabian Merk, Timo Schaffhauser, Faizan Anwar, Manuel Rauch, Jan Bliefernicht, and Markus Disse

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Cited articles

Afféwé, D. J., Merk, F., Bodjrènou, M., Rauch, M., Usman, M. N., Hounkpè, J., Bliefernicht, J.-G., Akpo, A. B., Disse, M., and Adounkpè, J.: Impact of Precipitation Uncertainty on Flood Hazard Assessment in the Oueme River Basin, Hydrology, 12, 138, https://doi.org/10.3390/hydrology12060138, 2025. a
Akoko, G., Le, T. H., Gomi, T., and Kato, T.: A Review of SWAT Model Application in Africa, Water, 13, 1313, https://doi.org/10.3390/w13091313, 2021. a, b
Alemayehu, T., van Griensven, A., Woldegiorgis, B. T., and Bauwens, W.: An improved SWAT vegetation growth module and its evaluation for four tropical ecosystems, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 4449–4467, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-4449-2017, 2017. a, b, c, d, e, f
Almazroui, M., Saeed, F., Saeed, S., Nazrul Islam, M., Ismail, M., Klutse, N. A. B., and Siddiqui, M. H.: Projected Change in Temperature and Precipitation Over Africa from CMIP6, Earth Systems and Environment, 4, 455–475, https://doi.org/10.1007/s41748-020-00161-x, 2020. a, b
Angelina, A., Gado Djibo, A., Seidou, O., Seidou Sanda, I., and Sittichok, K.: Changes to flow regime on the Niger River at Koulikoro under a changing climate, Hydrolog. Sci. J., 60, 1709–1723, https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2014.916407, 2015. a
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Short summary
Evapotranspiration is an integral element of the water availability estimation in tropical regions like West Africa. Climate change is projected to impact the water cycle. In this study, we evaluate the importance of AET (actual evapotranspiration) simulation for future climate impact assessments. We highlight differences if AET is or is not integrated in the model calibration. Our work contributes to the reduction of uncertainties in hydrological climate impact studies.
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