Climate Variability and Change—Hydrological Impacts (Proceedings of the Fifth FRIEND World Conference held at Havana, Cuba, November 2006), IAHS Publ. 308, 2006, 68–74.


 

The contribution of GIS to hydrological modelling

 

 

C. DIEULIN, J. F. BOYER, S. ARDOIN-BARDIN & A. DEZETTER

 

UMR HydroSciences Montpellier, IRD, BP 64501, F-34394 Montpellier cedex 5, France

claudine.dieulin@msem.univ-montp2.fr

 

Abstract In this communication, we aim to show our contribution towards the building of a grid containing the water holding capacity (WHC) parameter of the soils. This parameter is used as input data in a hydrological balance type model running at the scale of half a square degree for estimating the soil water reservoir. The Digital Soil Map of the World drawn and edited by FAO is the soil map we used to determine the WHC parameter.

 

Key words  hydrological balance model; water holding capacity; grid; FAO; soil classes; West and Central Africa