Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785

www.elsevier.com/locate/jhydrol

Hydrological response of a catchment to climate and land use

changes in Tropical Africa: case study South Central Ethiopia
Dagnachew Legessea,b,*, Christine Vallet-Coulomba, Francoise Gassea
a
CEREGE-CNRS/UMR 6635, B.P. 80, 13545 Aix-en-Provence cedex 04, France
b
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Addis Ababa University, P.O. Box 1176, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Received 21 January 2002; accepted 7 January 2003

Abstract
A hydrological modelling at a catchment scale has been used to investigate the impact of climatic and land use change on
water resources in data scarce Tropical Africa using a distributed precipitation-runoff modelling system. The model divides a
catchment into homogeneous hydrological response units, providing the ability to impose changes in climate or land use
spatially. Model parameters were either estimated from different existing data or by calibration against measured discharge data
available over 11 years (1985 1995). The model simulation-period was divided into calibration (1986 1990) and validation
(1991 1995) periods. The model provided relatively good fits between measured and simulated discharge both at a daily and
monthly scales. Based on sensitivity analyses, a 10% decrease in rainfall produced a 30% reduction on the simulated hydrologic
response of the catchment, while a 1.5 8C increase in air temperature would result in a decrease in the simulated discharge of
about 15%. Converting the present day dominantly cultivated/grazing land in the studied river basin by woodland would
decrease the discharge at the outlet by about 8%. In order to use the results of this kind of model for decision making and water
resources management, the model should be tested under different environment and different scenario conditions. Rainfall
measurement and stage-discharge rating curves should be given priority to improve model performance.
q 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Hydrological modelling; Tropical Africa; Model calibration; Sensitivity analysis; Climate change; Land use change

1. Introduction impact. The sensitivity of the semi-arid zones to

In the African tropics, the climate is characterised
by large interannual to centennial variability in rain-
fall, river flow regimes and lake level (Dagnachew
et al., 2002; Gasse, 2000; Lamb et al., 1998; Verschuren
et al., 2000) that have enormous socio-economic
* Corresponding author. Address: CEREGE-CNRS/UMR 6635,
B.P. 80, 13545 Aix-en-Provence cedex 04, France. Fax: 33-0-4-
42-97-15-95.
E-mail address: dagnachew@yahoo.com (D. Legesse).
0022-1694/03/$ - see front matter q 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0022-1694(03)00019-2
climatic fluctuations was dramatically illustrated by
severe droughts that affected the Sahel of West Africa
in the 1970 1980s (Hulme, 1992), and Ethiopia in
1888 1892 (Pankhurst, 1966) or more recently, in
1984 85. Moreover, multiple forces of change such
as, demographic trends, climate variability, national
policies, and macroeconomic activities result in
extensive alterations in land cover and land use,
which in turn impact the hydrologic system both at a
basin and regional scales.
68 D. Legesse et al. / Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785

In hydrological systems where lakes are the central
elements, e.g. the Ethiopian Rift Valley Lakes region,
the response of the lakes is mainly controlled by
processes in their catchments (e.g. Vallet-Coulomb
et al., 2001). For example, Lake Ziway located in the
Main Ethiopian Rift (Fig. 1), is fed principally by
rivers flowing from the plateaus on either side of the
rift. These rivers flow through densely populated
regions that use water for various purposes including
irrigation. Moreover, due to increasing population
density, there is a change in the land use/land cover in
the region (Henze, 1977; McCann, 1995). The outflow
of Lake Ziway is an important source of the down-
stream terminal Lake Abiyata (Fig. 1), whose level
and salinity is controlled by the amount of inflow from
Ziway (Dagnachew et al., 2003). It is therefore crucial
to understand the functioning of these lake catchments
and their hydrologic responses under different scen-
ario conditions for a sound management of the crucial
water resource in the region.
In most parts of Tropical Africa there is very
limited time series meteorological and hydrological
data both in space and time. Global Climate Models
that predict long-term trends in climate (rainfall,
temperature, humidity) are often unsuitable for
regional scale studies because of the course grid-size
resolution. Consequently, there is a strong need for
hydrologic modelling tools that can be used to assess
the likely effects of land use changes as well as
climate variability on the hydrologic cycle at a
catchment scale. Moreover, improved hydrological
models at the basin scale would provide the means for

Fig. 1. Location map of the Ketar river catchment within the Ziway Shala basin, South Central Ethiopia (inset: Main Ethiopian RiftMER).
 D. Legesse et al. / Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785
sound water resource management, which is a crucial
issue in most parts of Tropical Africa.
The objective of this study is (1) to assess the
sensitivity of water resources to land use changes as
well as climate variability in the Ketar river basin
located in the central part of the Main Ethiopian Rift
Valley in northern Tropical Africa (Fig. 1), through
hydrological modelling; (2) to assess the limitations
of model performance at a catchment scale in a region
with limited conventional data.
Hydrological models (sometimes termed rainfall-
runoff models) provide a framework to conceptualise
and investigate the relationships between climate,
human activities and water resources (Jothityangkoon
et al., 2001; Leavesley, 1994). They can be broadly
classified into three categories: empirical or black-
box, conceptual or grey-box, and physically based
distributed or white-box models. The first type models
do not explicitly consider the governing physical laws
of the process involved, but only relate input to output
through some transform function (Leavesley, 1994).
The second ones represent the effective response of an
entire catchment, without attempting to characterise
the spatial variability of the response explicitly. A
critical shortcoming of lumped models is their
inability to represent the spatial variability of hydro-
logic processes and catchment parameters (Moore
et al., 1991; Refsgaard, 1987). The physically based
distributed models are those which are able to
explicitly represent the spatial variability of some, if
not most, of the important land surface characteristics
such as topographic elevation, slope, aspect, veg-
etation, soil as well as climatic parameters including
precipitation, temperature, and evapotranspiration
distribution.
Because they relate model parameters directly to
physically observable land surface characteristics,
spatially distributed hydrological models have
important applications to the interpretation and
prediction of the effects of land use change and
climate variability (example: Andersen et al., 2001;
Binley et al., 1991; Calder, 1993; Calder et al., 1995;
Conway, 1997; Jothityangkoon et al., 2001; Lorup
et al., 1998; Refsgaard, 1987; Refsgaard et al., 1999;
Vorosmarty et al., 1989).
Here, we used the physically based distributed
Precipitation Runoff Modelling System (PRMS)
implemented under the Modular Modelling System
69
(MMS) (Leavesley et al., 1983, 2002), whose
potential for studies of climate change impact on
hydrological regimes of river basins is quite con-
solidated (e.g. Burlando and Rosso, 2002a,b; Flugel,
1995; Leavesley et al., 1992).
2. Methodology
2.1. Description of the PRMS model
The PRMS was developed to simulate runoff under
a wide range of hydrologic conditions (for details see
Leavesley et al., 1983; Leavesley et al., 2002). It is a
modular-design physical-process modelling system
that has been developed by the US Geological Survey
(USGS) to evaluate the impacts of various combi-
nations of precipitation, climate, and land use on
watershed response. The model operates at daily time
step whereby streamflow is computed as a mean daily
flow or at the storm mode, at time intervals shorter
than a day. Here only the daily time step is used to
compute stream discharge at the outlet of a catchment.
The distributed-parameter modelling capability is
provided by partitioning a watershed into homo-
geneous units known as hydrologic response units,
HRU. The concept of HRU is capable of preserving
the heterogeneity of the three-dimensional physio-
graphic properties of the drainage basin (Flugel, 1995)
and hence can be used for regional hydrological
modelling in different climatic regions. The delinea-
tion of the HRU is done on the basis of characteristics
such as slope, aspect, elevation, vegetation-type, soil
type, and distribution of precipitation. Each hydro-
logic response unit is assumed to have homogeneous
hydrologic characteristics. The crucial assumption for
each HRU is that the variation of the hydrologic
process dynamics within the HRU must be small
compared with the dynamics in a different HRU
(Flugel, 1995). A water balance is computed daily for
each HRU and the sum of the responses of all HRUs
weighted on a unit-area basis produces the daily
watershed response. The model does not perform
routing within the catchment for the daily mode.
Fig. 2 shows a schematic diagram of the various
components of PRMS. In PRMS a watershed is
conceptualised as a series of reservoirs whose outputs
combine to produce the total watershed response:
70 D. Legesse et al. / Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785

Fig. 2. Schematic representation of the different components of the PRMS model (from Leavesley et al., 1983).

the impervious-zone reservoir, the soil-zone reservoir,
the unsaturated subsurface reservoir and the ground-
water reservoir. The impervious-zone reservoir is a
zone of no infiltration, which looses water at a rate of
potential evaporation. Soil water processes include
infiltration, evaporation, plant uptake, lateral flow,
and percolation to lower layers. The depth of the soil
zone is determined by the average rooting depth of the
predominant vegetation type on the HRU and it is
divided into two layers. The upper zone, which is user
defined as to the character and storage characteristics,
looses water through evaporation and plant
transpiration, while the lower one looses only through
transpiration via plant root systems. Potential evapo-
transpiration (PET) from the soil zone is estimated as
a function of daily solar radiation and daily mean air
temperature.
Net rainfall (rainfall minus vegetation canopy
interception) is the source of moisture for the soil
zone. The volume infiltrating the soil zone is
computed as a function of soil characteristics,
antecedent soil moisture conditions, and storm
size. Daily infiltration is equal to net rainfall less
surface runoff. The latter is computed using
 D. Legesse et al. / Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785
the contributing-area concept, whereby the percen-
tage of a hydrologic response unit contributing to
surface runoff is computed as a linear function of
antecedent soil moisture and net rainfall amount.
Infiltration in excess of field capacity of the soil
zone, after fulfilling the evaporative demand, is
routed to lower layers. The repartition of this excess
water between the subsurface and groundwater
reservoirs is determined by coefficients estimated
by model calibration against measured streamflow
data.
The subsurface storage behaves as a linear or non-
linear reservoir and receives water from the soil zone
when field capacity is exceeded by infiltration.
Subsurface flow (interflow) is considered to be the
relatively rapid movement of water from the unsatu-
rated zone to a stream channel and is determined as a
function of recharge rate coefficient and the volume of
water stored in the subsurface reservoir. The ground-
water system is conceptualised as a linear reservoir
and is assumed to be the source of all baseflow. It
receives water from the soil zone and the subsurface
reservoir. Part of the groundwater is lost through deep
percolation (seepage) to points beyond the area of
interest.
Daily total streamflow from the watersheds outlet
is the sum of surface runoff, subsurface interflow and
baseflow.
2.2. Model calibration and validation
Model calibration (parameter estimation) involves
the automatic and/or manual adjustment of model
parameters to minimise the difference between
observed and predicted values, which is called the
objective function. Physically based models such as
PRMS require a large number of parameter values to be
calibrated in applications to real catchments. Sensi-
tivity analysis, however, suggests that the simulations
are relatively more sensitive to some parameters than to
others. This also allows limiting excessive over-
parameterisation of a model (Beven, 1996).
Model validation involves testing the ability of a
model to simulate the hydrologic response of a basin
for conditions different from that used during the
calibration period (Klemes, 1986; Lorup et al., 1998;
Refsgaard and Knudsen, 1996). In this study, the
model simulation period was divided into two
71
(calibration and validation) and the simple split-
sample test proposed by Klemes (1986) was adopted
at daily and monthly time steps.
2.3. Model performance criteria
Uncertain inputs, uncertain structures, uncertain
initial conditions and randomness of natural systems
are inherent ingredients in modelling hydrologic
systems (e.g. Leavesley, 1994; Troutman, 1985).
Similarly, data available for any specific system are
incomplete and often uncertain. It is therefore a
common practice to develop a model performance or
validation criteria in order to test the integrity of the
modelling exercise.
In this study, model performance was evaluated
using different techniques: (1) joint plots of the daily
and monthly simulated and observed hydrographs, (2)
joint plots of the flow duration curves, (3) the Nash
Sutcliffe coefficient of efficiency R2 ; based on the
sequence of observed and simulated monthly and
daily flows over the calibration and validation periods.
The visual inspection of the joint plots helped to
subjectively judge the ability of the model to simulate
the interannual and seasonal variability and extreme
conditions. The flow duration curve is a plot of the
magnitude of daily flow against the probability that it
will be exceeded on any given day (Jothityangkoon
et al., 2001). It is different from the interannual
variability plots in that it represents the longer term
random variability of streamflows.
3. Model application to the Ketar River basin
and results
3.1. General description of the Ketar basin
3.1.1. Physiography
The 3220 km2 Ketar watershed is part of the
Ziway Shala basin, an internal drainage basin
located in the central part of the Main Ethiopian
Rift Valley (Fig. 1). The latter is a NNE SSW
structure down-faulted through the Ethiopian high-
lands. The Ketar River and its tributaries drain the
highland area to the south and east of Lake Ziway.
This lake is the most northerly of the Main
Ethiopian Rift Valley lakes, and is fed principally
72 D. Legesse et al. / Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785

by rivers draining the southeastern and northwestern
plateaux and escarpments (Fig. 1). Lake Ziway
overflows to Lake Abiyata to the south. Topogra-
phically, the Ketar catchment shows a well-
pronounced variation with the altitude ranging
from around 1700 m near Lake Ziway to about
4000 m on the high volcanic ridges along the
eastern watershed (Figs. 1, and 3(b)). There is an
intermediate plateau between 2000 and 3000 m
followed by a series of steep rocky NNE SSW
running parallel faults leading from the plateau to
the rift floor.
3.1.2. Climate
The Ketar catchment is characterised by a semi-
arid to subhumid climate with mean annual precipi-
tation and mean annual temperature varying from
700 mm and 20 8C on the rift floor, to 1200 mm and

Fig. 3. (a) Drainage network, (b) topographic elevation (m a.s.l), (c) generalised land use map (1. Afro-alpine bushand shrub. 2. Traditionally
cultivated with patches of wooded land. 3. Traditionally cultivated/grazing with few tree stands. 4. Intensively cultivated. 5. Degraded acacia
land with cultivated/grazing. 6. Wetland, 7. Planted eucalyptus trees. 8. Towns) and (d) Outline soil map (from Makin et al., 1976) of the Ketar
River catchment.
 D. Legesse et al. / Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785
Fig. 4. Mean monthly (a) temperature and (b) rainfall data at selected stations from the Ketar River catchment (see Fig. 3 for location of
stations).
15 8C on the humid plateau and escarpment, respect-
ively. Fig. 4 shows plots of mean monthly temperature
and rainfall data at three selected stations in the Ketar
watershed (Abura in the rift floor, Assela on the
escarpment and Bekoji on the plateau; data from
Ethiopian Meteorological Services).
The region is characterised by three main seasons.
The long rainy season in the summer (June
September; summer monsoon rainfall, locally
known as kiremt) is primarily controlled by the
seasonal migration of the Inter Tropical Convergence
Zone (ITCZ) which lies to the north of Ethiopia at that
time. The kiremt rain represents 50 70% of the
mean annual total (Degefu, 1987). The dry period
extends between October and February (known as
baga) when the ITCZ lies south of Ethiopia. The
small rain season belg representing 20 30% of the
annual amount occurs during March to May when the
ITCZ moves from south to north over the country.
The pattern of increasing rainfall associated with
increasing altitude is modified in the high altitude area
by the influence of the high mountains which may
cause either rain shadows or areas of heavy
73
orographic rainfall (Makin et al., 1975). Highlands
flanking the Rift Valley intercept most of the
monsoonal rainfall in the region, resulting in a strong
moisture deficit in the rift floor in general and near the
lakes in particular. The pattern of the precipitation in
the rift floor is more of stormy type with relatively
high intensity (up to 100 mm/hr) compared to the
highlands with only 60 70 mm/hr (Makin et al.,
1975).
3.1.3. Vegetation
The low lying region around Lake Ziway is
typically of semi-arid land characterised by dry land
acacia. Much of the higher escarpments below
3000 m are either cultivated or under grass. The
main crop near the lakes region is maize. With
increasing altitude, the basin is mainly characterised
by traditionally cultivated/pasture land with wheat
and barley being the major crops, together with some
oil crops, peas, and false banana Ensete ventricosum
(a staple food in many parts of the basin and cultivated
at altitudes ranging between 1600 and 3000 m). There
are only some remnants of the montane forest that still
74 D. Legesse et al. / Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785
existed some decades ago between 2000 and 3000 m
on the eastern Ethiopian plateaux bordering the rift
and dominated by Podocarpus gracilior and Juni-
perus procera (Friis, 1986). The Ericaceous belt
extends up to 3600 m where it grades into Afroalpine
type of vegetation (Chaffey, 1978). Fig. 3(c) shows a
generalised outline land use map of Ketar catchment
based on Landsat ETM (December 3, 1999)
images (Dagnachew, 2002).
3.1.4. Soil
On the plateau, above 2000 m, the basalt, tuff and
ignimbrite with additional volcanic ash give rise to
soils with high silt and clay contents (Makin et al.,
1975). These vary from relatively deep (often more
than 2 m thick), dark brown silty clay loam and clay
loam, to red clays with up to 80% clay content on the
well drained undulating terrain around Assela and
poorly drained greyish brown to black silty clays on
more gentle slopes around Sagure (Makin et al.,
1975). On the low land area around Lake Ziway, the
soils are developed on lacustrine sediments and are
predominantly of sandy texture. These are generally
thin with less than 1 m thickness (Chernet, 1982). The
soils on the higher volcanic ridges are generally
poorly developed stony Lithosols. Outline soil map of
the catchment is shown in Fig. 3(d).
3.2. Input data collection
Daily and monthly series of rainfall and tem-
perature (1985 1995) were obtained from the
Ethiopian Meteorological Services. Records of
mean daily river discharge data (1985 1995) were
obtained from the Ethiopian Ministry of Water
Resources. In the absence of daily solar radiation or
reliable pan evaporation data for the studied region,
daily solar radiation data obtained from about
2200 m a.s.l. altitude (which is the average altitude
of the Ketar catchment) at Addis Ababa, about
120 km north of the study area, was used. This data
was provided by the Geophysical Observatory of
Addis Ababa University and is preferred to the
empirically derived value within the PRMS, as the
later was calibrated for a climate in the west of the
United States and hence not adapted to tropical
climate. Topographic maps of 1:250,000 and
1:50,000 scales were obtained from the Ethiopian
Mapping Authority. Landsat ETM images (3
December, 1999) of the region were bought from
EOSAT. Missing data in the daily rainfall and
temperature series were filled by statistical
regression analysis, using loading factors estimated
from the coefficients of correlation between adjacent
stations.
3.3. HRU delineation
There are no hard and fast rules as to the
delineation of the HRUs (Leavesley, 1994). In our
study, we used ArcView (ESRI) and ILWIS (ITC)
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for the
partitioning of the watershed. Topographic maps of
1:250,000 and 1:50,000 scales were digitised and
analysed to generate the slope, aspect and shaded
relief maps needed to create the HRUs. Existing
outline soil map (Makin et al., 1975) was digitised and
satellite image-derived land use/land cover map was
integrated in a GIS. Daily precipitation data recorded
at five meteorological stations in the catchment
(location: Fig. 1) were interpolated spatially using
kriging technique to generate mean monthly spatial
distribution maps of the precipitation in the basin.
These data were brought to the same spatial scale and
were overlaid to delineate the watershed units. After
simplification of the resulting polygons obtained from
the overlay process, fifteen HRUs were delineated for
the Ketar basin. The boundaries of the HRUs are
shown in Fig. 5 and Table 1 shows some of the
characteristics of the HRUs. Each HRU was assumed
to be homogeneous with respect to its soil, vegetative
cover, slope, aspect, altitude, and precipitation
distribution.
The representation of the soil column and the
infiltration parameterisation is particularly important
because of their direct effects on a models vertical
distribution of soil moisture. Soil moisture availability
determines, to a large extent, the partitioning of
precipitation between storage and runoff. The avail-
able soil water holding capacity (field capacity minus
wilting point) is determined by the structure and depth
of the root system and the soil texture. Unfortunately,
very little is known about the rooting depths of plants
in the region. For this study, we adopted values
estimated by (Vorosmarty et al., 1989) based on
relationships linking vegetation class, soil texture,
 D. Legesse et al. / Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785
Fig. 5. The generalised boundaries of delineated hydrologic
response units for the Ketar River catchment.
rooting depth and moisture capacity of soil. The depth
of the upper soil layer is user-defined and was
assumed to consist of the top one third of the root
zone.
Each HRU is assigned one of the four vegetation
types defined in PRMS (bare soil, grassland, shrubs or
trees) based on the dominant vegetation type that
covers the HRU. Vegetation density (the percentage
of green on a patch of land, an HRU), was estimated
using normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI)
from ETM satellite images and field observations.
Canopy interception storage capacity of the dominant
vegetation type for each HRU was taken from the
literature (Haan et al., 1994). Mean values of slope,
aspect and altitude as derived from GIS analysis were
attributed to each HRU.
Because the groundwater in the higher altitude
escarpments and plateaux is different from those in the
lower rift zones (Ayenew, 1998), two groundwater
75
reservoirs (one for the recharge zone above 2000 m
a.s.l. and one for the lower zone); and one subsurface
reservoir were considered. Parameters associated with
these reservoirs were estimated by model calibration.
3.4. Model calibration and validation
Two time periods were selected denoted by the
calibration period (1986 1990) and the validation
period (1991 1995) for the modelling analyses with a
model initialisation period set to 1985 1986. The
initialisation period allows the model to cycle a
number of times in an attempt to minimise the effects
of the users estimate of initial values of state
variables at model start-up. PRMS was first run in a
daily runoff-prediction mode with parameter values
that were estimated for the catchment and believed to
be reasonable. After selection of the initial parameter
values, a daily sensitivity analysis was used to identify
parameters that had the most effect on predicting daily
runoff during the model calibration period. Par-
ameters chosen for calibration include: the Jensen
Haise evapotranspiration coefficient, the contributing
area coefficient, parameters determining the delay of
the surface runoff, the subsurface-to-groundwater
routing and groundwater recession coefficients. Initial
values of the baseflow recession parameters were
obtained from baseflow separation of the measured
discharge data.
The model was calibrated, using the Rosenbrock
optimisation procedure (Rosenbrock, 1960) against
five hydrologic years (1986 1990) of daily measured
runoff at the catchment outlet. Using the mean square
error as objective function and by defining lower and
upper bounds for the selected parameters, nearly 1000
model runs were executed automatically. The advan-
tage of the automatic calibration procedure over
manual calibration is that it is relatively rapid, reduces
subjectivity of modeller, and maintains proportion-
ality between different parameters, which are estab-
lished a priori (Eckhardt and Arnold, 2001). Table 2
shows a range of values for some of the estimated or
calibrated model parameters.
Fig. 6(a) shows the observed and simulated mean
daily runoff for Ketar river basin for the calibration
period (1986 1991). There is a reasonably good
agreement between the measured and simulated
stream flow during this period with an efficiency
76 D. Legesse et al. / Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785

Table 1
Some of the characteristics of the HRUs delineated for Ketar River catchment

HRU Area (km2) % Area Slope (%) Aspecta Elevatn (m) Soilb Vegetationc SMAXd (mm)

HRU 1 339.9 10.6 5 W 1750 1 1 109.0

HRU 2 184.9 5.7 5 W 1850 2 1 152.0
HRU 3 148.9 4.6 8 SW 2100 2 1 152.0
HRU 4 109.8 3.4 10 W 2300 2 1 152.0
HRU 5 239.9 7.5 5 W 2300 2 1 152.0
HRU 6 43.3 1.3 20 SW 2700 2 3 243.0
HRU 7 150.4 4.7 10 W 2900 3 1 152.0
HRU 8 201.9 6.3 7 W 2600 3 1 89.0
HRU 9 232.4 7.2 2 W 2400 3 1 89.0
HRU 10 236.4 7.3 2 W 2480 3 1 89.0
HRU 11 386.4 12.0 5 NW 2600 3 1 89.0
HRU 12 333.1 10.4 20 NW 3000 3 1 89.0
HRU 13 203.2 6.3 10 W 2800 3 3 153.0
HRU 14 210.3 6.5 15 W 3300 1 2 78.0
HRU 15 196.6 6.1 20 SW 3300 1 2 78.0
a
Azimuth of slope: W west, SW southwest, NW northwest.
b
1 sand, 2 loam, 3 clay.
c
1 grassland/crop, 2 shrub, 3 wood.
d
Maximum soil water holding capacity of soil profile.

coefficient of 0.84. Here, we note that the model has
very well simulated the variability of runoff in terms
of seasonal regime, i.e. uni-modal in 1988, bi-modal
in 1989, and tri-modal in 1987 and 1990. This
variability is mainly attributed to the change in the
seasonal regime of precipitation in the region, which
at times is characterised by one long rainy period from
May September, or two distinct rainy periods or even
a discontinuity during the main rainy period leading to
three rainy seasons. Peak values are generally slightly
overestimated. The flow duration curve (Fig. 7) also
shows a very good agreement attesting that the longer
term random variability of streamflow is well
simulated by the model. Fig. 8 shows the three
components of the streamflow. The relative pro-
portion of the three components of the runoff (surface

Table 2
Range values for some of the estimated or optimised parameters used in the PRMS model for Ketar River catchment

Parameter Definition Range in values in 15 HRUs

Jh_coefa JensenHaise evapotranspiration coefficient 0.00500.0057

SMAX Maximum available water holding capacity in soil profile, in mm 79153
SCXa Maximum possible contributing area as proportion of total HRU 0.010.05
area (decimal form)
Soil2gw_maxa Maximum daily recharge from soil-moisture excess to designated 0.0
groundwater reservoir, in mm per day
Ssr2gw_ratea Coefficient to calculate daily recharge fromsub-surface to 0.085
groundwater reservoir
Gwflow_coefa Groundwater 1reservoir recession coefficient 0.00220.000294
Gwflow_sinka Deep groundwater loss coefficient 0.0020.006
Covden_sum Summer vegetation cover density 0.150. 5
Covde_win Winter vegetation cover density 0.00.35
Srain_intcpa Summer canopy interception storage capacity, in mm 2.510.0
Wrain_intcpa Winter canopy interception storage capacity, in mm 0.250.75
a
Optimised.
 D. Legesse et al. / Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785 77

Fig. 6. Mean daily simulated and observed discharge at the outlet of Ketar River for (a) the calibration and (b) validation periods.

Fig. 7. The flow duration curves for (a) the calibration and (b) validation periods of the Ketar River at its outlet at Abura.
78 D. Legesse et al. / Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785
Fig. 8. The three components (surface runoff, interflow and baseflow) of the daily simulated discharge at the outlet of the Ketar River.
runoff, interflow, and baseflow) depends on the
physical characteristics of the watershed, the land
use and the soil characteristics. For Ketar catchment,
the interflow is the most important component during
the rainy period, while the baseflow maintains the
river runoff during the dry season. They constitute,
respectively, about 60 and 30% of the total annual
flow on average. This is mainly because of the
absence of impervious zones in the catchment, which
would otherwise facilitate quick surface overland
flow. In effect, the mainly cultivated/grazing land in
the watershed favours infiltration in the soil zone and
thereby lateral subsurface flow along subsurface
channels, macro pores, and fractures. This would
explain the relatively small contribution of overland
flow to the streamflow.
The mean monthly observed and predicted runoffs
(Fig. 9(a)) show a better agreement with R2 of 0.95 for
the calibration period. This shows that the model was
able to represent the dynamics of the hydrograph at
the monthly scale better than at the daily scale. For the
validation period (1991 1995), the performance was
somewhat reduced with efficiency of 0.73 for the daily
mode and 0.88 for the monthly one (Figs. 6(b) and
9(b)). The reduction is, however, limited and the
model was able to maintain a very good representation
of the overall water balance and the interannual and
seasonal variability, as well as the general pattern.
Although the flow duration curves for the validation
period match reasonably well (Fig. 7), the difference
between observed and simulated discharge becomes
exceptionally big for the year 1994. This discrepancy
is difficult to explain in terms of problem in model
structure as it is a single event out of a 10 year
simulation period. It can likely be explained by
problems either in the input data or the measured
discharge values or a combination of both.
Table 3 shows the summary statistics of the
simulated water balance for the calibration and
simulation periods. Although the model simulated
well the inter- and intra-annual variability of the river
discharge, the absolute error, which is proportional to
the magnitude of the stream discharge, is about 11%.
3.5. Scenario simulation
We have performed simulations under different
scenario conditions in order to analyse the impact on
the catchment hydrology of possible changes in
climate variables or in land use that may occur in
the near future, or may have occurred in the recent
past.
Simulating the hydrologic response of a catchment
to different scenario conditions involves calibrating
and validating a hydrological model using present
conditions and running the model with parameters and
input data corresponding to the proposed scenario
conditions and comparing the two simulations. For
precipitation, a 10% change is chosen arbitrarily.
More change scenarios are proposed for a detailed
coupled catchment lake model to study the impact of
precipitation changes on the level and chemistry of
the respective lakes that depend on these catchments
(Dagnachew et al., 2003). For the temperature,
 D. Legesse et al. / Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785 79

Fig. 9. Mean monthly simulated and observed discharge at the outlet of the Ketar River for (a) the calibration and (b) validation periods.

a 1.5 8C increase is in the range of the general
warming observed during the past 200 years or
expected during the current century (IPCC, 2001),
while a decrease of 1.5 8C is the same order of
magnitude as the cooling in the northern hemisphere
during the Little Ice Age (AD 1270 1850; (Jones
et al., 2001). Land use/land cover changes occur in the
country as a whole and in the Ziway Shala basin in
particular (Woldu and Tadesse, 1990) due to increas-
ing population, which has almost doubled in

Table 3
Mean statistics of the model output for Ketar River catchment at its outlet at Abura (Qobs ; Qsim : observed and simulated discharge, respectively)

Period Mean (m3/s) Std (m3/s) Percent error Efficiency coefficienta

Qobs: Qsim: Qobs: Qsim:

Calibration 12.28 11.50 17.52 15.45 10.7 0.84

Validation 13.40 11.88 20.24 18.24 11.3 0.73
a
Nash and Sutcliffe (1970).
80 D. Legesse et al. / Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785

the country over the past 40 years (CSA, 1999). It is
thus essential to analyse the possible impacts of these
changes at different scales.
3.5.1. Climate scenario
For the purpose of this study, a scenario involving a
10% change in the amount of daily rainfall is assumed
during the model simulation period (1986 1995).
Like all tropical semi-arid regions, the Ketar River
basin is characterised by a strong interannual
variability of rainfall. For example, during the 10
years of simulation period used in this study, the
spatially averaged catchment mean annual rainfall
varied between a minimum value of 820 mm and a
maximum of 1085 mm, thus providing a justifiable
confidence as to the adequate calibration of the model
for the range in rainfall values used for the scenario
simulation. A 10% decrease in the daily rainfall
amount year-round during the model simulation
period resulted in an average annual decrease in
runoff at the outlet of about 30%. This rainfall change
scenario suggests that the highest decrease in mean
monthly runoff will be during summer, especially
between August and September, with a decrease of up
to 45 50%. A graphical comparison of the afore-
mentioned results can be seen in Fig. 10(a). A year-
round 10% increase in daily rainfall would result in an
increase in annual runoff of about 30% on average.
On the other hand, a 10% decrease of rainfall
during the small rain period between March and
April, keeping the rest unchanged, would result in an
average decrease in the mean annual discharge at the
outlet of about 8%. This may have a significant impact
for the overall hydrologic response of the catchment.

Fig. 10. Plots of the simulation results with different scenarios (a) climatic change (10%P:10% year-round decrease in rainfall, 10%SP:10%
spring rainfall decrease, and (b) 10% year-round decrease in average air temperature).
 D. Legesse et al. / Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785
In effect, a decrease in the spring rain will reduce the
baseflow during the beginning of the summer months
thereby reducing the total discharge at least during the
first half of the summer rainy period. This situation
can be observed on Fig. 10(a), where the spring
rainfall scenario discharge is less than the normal
situation during the first half of the summer months. In
Ethiopia, drought usually begins when there is a
significant decrease or total absence of the spring rain
followed by a relatively dry summer season (Degefu,
1987). Generally, the sensitivity of runoff to rainfall
changes is very similar to results in other impacts
studies, e.g. (Gleick, 1986).
The system seems to be more reactive to an
increase in rainfall than to a decrease. It should,
however, be noted that it is not only the quantity but
also the quality of rainfall and the number of rainy
days that are going to control the hydrologic response
of the system. This needs running the model at a scale
less than a day (storm mode), which requires data at
this same resolution.
A 1.5 8C decrease in the average air temperature
would bring a decrease in potential evapotranspiration
(estimated as a function of air temperature and solar
radiation using an empirical method; (Jensen and
Haise, 1963) of about 8% and an increase in the mean
annual simulated discharge of about 20% (Fig. 10(b)),
while a 1.5 8C increase would result in a 15% decrease
in the mean annual runoff. It should, however, be
noted that a persistent 1.5 8C change in air tempera-
ture would be accompanied by several other factors
and feedback mechanisms, such as changes in solar
radiation, vegetation cover and rainfall regime, that
will have significant effect on the catchment hydrol-
ogy. It is therefore difficult to assess the real impact of
such a change at a catchment scale and the above
values give only an order of magnitude of a response
to a hypothetical change in temperature, without
taking into account other factors that may occur as a
result of the change in temperature.
3.5.2. Land use scenario
Forests usually evaporate more water than agri-
cultural crops or annual crops for two reasons (Calder
et al., 1995). In wet climates, where the surfaces of
vegetation remain wet for long periods, forests
evaporate intercepted water at higher rates than
shorter crops because their very rough surfaces assist
81
the aerodynamic transport of water vapour into the
atmosphere. In drier climates, because the root
systems of forests are generally much deeper than
those of short vegetation or agricultural crops, forests
can reach more soil water to maintain transpiration
during dry periods and this lead to higher evaporation
overall. Conversion of forest to short crops is therefore
expected to result in increased runoff and, where the
runoff feeds lakes, increased lake levels. However,
lack of detailed data on soil type and texture, on root
system distribution of different vegetation types, etc.
our knowledge on the soil water interaction, particu-
larly infiltration characteristics and soil water reten-
tion capacity remain poor in much of Tropical Africa
and needs further work to enable the use of any
prediction models for water resources assessment in
the region.
At present, the Ketar basin is dominated by
traditionally cultivated/grazing land (Fig. 3). Changes
in land use in the region has commenced before the
1970s (Makin et al., 1975). It was reported that most of
the escarpment and high plateau between 2000 and
3000 m a.s.l. which actually is dominated by either
degraded woodland/grassland or cultivated fields and
meadows, was covered by trees and dense montane
forest before the end of the 19th century (Chaffey,
1978; Friis, 1986; Henze, 1977; McCann, 1995, 1997).
It is, however, in the last few decades that there has
been more damage to the forest (Woldu and Tadesse,
1990). This observation is further reinforced by the fact
that the relatively protected escarpments just to the
south of the study area are still covered by either the
natural forest or are partly replaced by other species. In
his voyage to mount Chilalo on the eastern plateau
(Henze, 1977) reported that the high middle mountains
of Chilalo appeared to have been permanently settled
by cultivators for only a decade or two before his visit
and that most of the natural vegetation cover was
already being removed for agriculture and grazing.
In this model, we introduced one scenario of land
use change based on historical data, topographic slope
and vegetation distribution in adjacent, relatively
protected basins in the region to asses the impact of
this change on the runoff. Here, we are not pretending
to reconstruct the vegetation history of the region, we
are just proposing a possible and plausible scenario to
simulate their potential impacts on the hydrology.
Parameters that were adjusted with respect to changes
82 D. Legesse et al. / Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785
Fig. 11. Plot of the simulation results with land use change scenario (assuming land between 2000 and 3000 m to be covered by woodland).
in the vegetation cover included maximum soil water
holding capacity (SMAX), maximum interception
storage, and vegetation cover density. The latter
determines the amount of total canopy interception.
The change in runoff resulting from the change in land
use is determined by comparing the simulated flows
using the calibrated parameters Qsim1 with that
obtained with parameters estimated for the assumed
land use changes Qsim2 : By assuming the scenario
that the part of the catchment between 2000 and
3000 m a.s.l. (except the relatively flat plain HRU 9
and 10), which represents about 50% of the total
catchment area, was covered by dense woodland and
introducing the corresponding parameters to this
change, the model produced an increase in evapo-
transpiration of about 2.5% and a decrease in the mean
annual river flow of about 8% with respect to the
actually simulated value for the calibration period
(Fig. 11). The difference is higher for peak discharge
values when the retention capacity of the soil, which
in part is a function of the vegetation type through the
rooting depth, is at its maximum. Although this
scenario may overestimate the changes that might
have occurred in the catchment, it shows the role that
this type of change may have in the hydrological
response.
4. Discussion and conclusion
Despite data scarcity, which is a common
problem in most parts of Tropical Africa,
the model produced relatively good simulation
results at the daily and monthly time steps with
parameters calibrated against measured discharge
data. The quality of the daily measured discharge
data is crucial for the calibration exercise in order
to obtain good performance. In addition, model
performance is also affected by the quality of
estimated or calibrated parameters and that of the
input data, such as rainfall, temperature, solar
radiation, etc. The model is very sensitive to data
used for evapotranspiration estimation; i.e. air
temperature and solar radiation. Possible errors in
this data are compensated by parameter calibration.
For example, one of the calibrated parameters, the
Jensen Haise coefficient should compensate for
part of possible errors inherent in the solar
radiation and temperature data. Moreover, the
spatialisation of point meteorological data, such as
rainfall, especially in regions with poor network,
introduces errors in the data used in a catchment-
scale model and it is important to give priority to
this variable in the search for improving the quality
of the hydrological simulation.
The climatic input data (precipitation and air
temperature) are the most sensitive input data
which resulted in a difference of about 20 30%
in the simulated discharge for a 10% assumed
change. It was also observed that changing a
catchment, which is dominantly covered by tra-
ditionally cultivated/grazing land to woodland,
would increase the evaporative loss and decrease
the discharge at the outlet. The impact would
 D. Legesse et al. / Journal of Hydrology 275 (2003) 6785
obviously be more significant when there is a
combination of land use change and climatic
disturbance as is often the case in the study area.
In the absence of climatic data such as wind speed
and air humidity, the use of methods which combine
the aerodynamic and energy balance components such
as the Penman or Penman Monteith were impossible
to test. Moreover there is no any reliable pan
evaporation data in the region. It was therefore
impossible to compare results obtained using the
Jensen Haise method with others. Mean annual
values of 1150 mm around Bekoji on the high plateau
and 1900 mm near Lake Ziway with an intermediate
value of 1500 mm near Assela on the escarpment
were obtained for the PET using the Jensen Haise
method. Vallet-Coulomb et al. (2001) estimated the
mean annual value of evaporation for Lake Ziway
using different methods at about 1800 mm which
could be assumed to correspond to the potential
evapotranspiration of the rift floor.
Generally, stage discharge rating curves are
obtained by extrapolation when a water level is
recorded below the lowest or above the highest
gauged level. Large errors can result from extra-
polation of ratings beyond the range of gauged
discharges without consideration of cross-section
geometry and controls (Mosley and McKerchar,
1993). In effect, during high discharge periods, the
water may reach bankfull discharge or it may
overflow the stream channel creating problems to
establish a reliable stage discharge relationship.
This will obviously have an impact on the
calibration of hydrological models using measured
discharge data. This may in part explain the
relatively poor performance of the PRMS model
to simulate peak values for the Ketar catchment.
Whatever the quality of the input data and
parameters used is, this work has demonstrated that
any scenario study, past or future, needs a thorough
understanding of a system at present conditions. In
order to use any modelling approach for resources
management or decision making, the model needs
to be carefully calibrated against observed data and
validated at different places under different scen-
arios. Climatic simulations derived from general
circulation models (GCM) may help introduce more
realistic scenarios at catchment scales through
downscaling (e.g. Burlando and Rosso, 2002a,b)
83
and shall be considered once the model is validated
under different climatic conditions.
Acknowledgements
This work was carried under a collaboration
project between the Addis Ababa University, the
French Ministe`re des Affaires Etrange`res (MAE)
and the Centre National de la Recherche Scienti-
fique (CNRS). It was supported by the CNRS and
a PhD grant (to Dagnachew Legesse) from the
MAE. It also benefited financial supports from the
French program REponse du Syste`me SOl-Lac-
VEgetation a` lechelle du bassin: sensibilite aux
changements environnementaux de cosyste` mes
semi-arides en Afrique orientale (RESOLVE).
We sincerely acknowledge the Department of
Geology and Geophysics (Addis Ababa University),
for giving field work facilities and for allowing
Dagnachew Legesse to join this project; the
Ethiopian Ministry of Water Resources, and the
Ethiopian Meteorological services for providing
hydrological and meteorological data, and the
French Embassy in Ethiopia for their various
support. We express our sincere gratitude to
George Leavesley and Steve Markstrom of USGS
for making the PRMS/MMS available. We thank
the anonymous reviewer for his (her) very con-
structive remarks and suggestions.
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