Author(s): Chanel Nzango; Laurent Touchart; Pascal Bartout
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: Ubangui; Dam; Hydrological impacts; Ecological continuity; Palambo
Abstract: The advent of hydropower in the 18th century has rationally changed the functions of dams and contributed enormously to their emergence around the world, to the belief that no engineering sector has contributed so much to the development of modern society as"Hydraulic engineering". According to the World Comission on Dam (WCD) report, the benefits of dams mask their social and ecological impacts. With the recent environmental awareness, many water projects are now accompanied by an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to minimize the adverse effects of the project to maximize the positive effects. Hydrologically, modeling is often used to simulate the predictable effects of a dam on a river system. But, the performance of a model depends on the type of equation used, the area studied and the accuracy of the required data. However, "spatial extrapolation"can be used to predict the hydrological impact of a planned dam on a river. This extrapolation method is referred to as the"project station method", which is applied by transposing the hydrological effects of a"reference dam"to a"projected dam". The method is applicable when the reference dam has similarities with the projected dam. This is the case in the Ubangui basin, where we applied the"project station"method to predict the hydrological impact of the planned Palambo dam on the Ubangui River (Fig. 1). To this end, we have chosen the Boali dam as a reference dam to transpose its hydrological effects observed on the planned Palambo dam. The results of this extrapolation have shown that the proposed dam in Palambo will have effects on the hydrological regime of the Ubangui River. An"artificial diet"will be put in place to replace the"natural diet", and this will have the effect of altering the river dynamics of the Ubangui.
Year: 2018