Water balance assessment in woodland anthropogenic environments (Lubumbashi region, upper katanga province, D.R. Congo). Methodology for the estimation of potential evapostranspiration

Abstract

The current global context of climate change requires us to know the extreme probable limits of certain components of the water balance, in particular evapotranspiration, the agricultural deficit, the surplus water in the soil, … in woodland anthropogenic environments like Lubumbashi Region (28°29’ E, 11°35’ S, 1298 m of altitude). In the Lubumbashi region, a recent study (Kalombo, 2015) indicates that the rainy season is marked by an increasingly noticeable late start, early endings and increasingly long dry periods. At present, directly mesuring the quantities of water that participate in the different biological functions in a ecosystem is much more difficult in regions such as Lubumbashi ⁽²⁾, and the difficulties increase when the study environment includes a forest with multiple vegetation strata and that the interval of time must be small enough to account for the succession of phenomena during the year; this is why we used the method of Thornthwaite and Mather (1955) for the water balance. These authors have, by mutual agreement, developed a method for simulating the elements of the water balance; the latter has the advantage of being simple and therefore largely affordable in our regions when modern measurements techniques are difficult to access.