Tshitenge Mbuebue Jean Marie

The aims of this paper is to compare the lightning activity (number of lightning flashes) of mesoscale convective systems over North and South Equatorial Africa. It examines also the correlation between the lightning activity in the Northern Equatorial Africa and that in the Southern one. Indeed, spatial observations have shown that the highest concentrations of lightning on the Earth are mostly located in Equatorial Africa. This study has been made using data processing, descriptive statistical analysis and wavelet coherence analysis. The obtained results show that there is more lightning activity in the North region of Equatorial Africa than in the South one, in an average ratio of about 1.12 to 1. At the same time, a North-South regional contrast in lightning activity is observed over the Equatorial Africa. Concerning their relationships, it has been found that the lightning activity is strongly and negatively correlated (R=-0.588) between the two hemispheres. Furthermore, using the wavelet method we have obtained the same results. The degree of linearity between the lightning activity signals S 1 of the Northern Equatorial Africa and S 2 of the Southern one has been characterized (linear correlation level between 0 and 1) for any time-scale location and shows that the interactions between the two signals are at sub-annual and seasonal scales, with a relative phase difference of 180° (in phase opposition). Thus, the two signals are negatively correlated. Lightning activity shows very high trends in both sub-regions and the variation in its monthly as well as seasonal mean could be explained given the strong convection and thunderstorms throughout the region.

Although the Congo Basin is still one of the least studied river basins in the world, this paper attempts to provide a multidisciplinary but non-exhaustive synthesis on the general hydrology of the Congo River by highlighting some points of interest and some particular results obtained over a century of surveys and scientific studies. The Congo River is especially marked by its hydrological regularity only interrupted by the wet decade of 1960, which is its major anomaly over nearly 120 years of daily observations. Its interannual flow is 40,500 m³ s⁻¹. This great flow regularity should not hide important spatial variations. As an example, we can cite the Ubangi basin, which is the most northern and the most affected by a reduction in flow, which has been a cause for concern since 1970 and constitutes a serious hindrance for river navigation. With regard to material fluxes, nearly 88 × 10⁶ tonnes of material are exported annually from the Congo Basin to the Atlantic Ocean, composed of 33.6 × 10⁶ tonnes of TSS, 38.1 × 10⁶ tonnes of TDS and 16.2 × 10⁶ tonnes of DOC. In this ancient flat basin, the absence of mountains chains and the extent of its coverage by dense rainforest explains that chemical weathering (10.6 t km⁻² year⁻¹ of TDS) slightly predominates physical erosion (9.3 t km⁻² year⁻¹ of TSS), followed by organic production (4.5 t km⁻² year⁻¹ of DOC). As the interannual mean discharges are similar, it can be assumed that these interannual averages of material fluxes, calculated over the longest period (2006–2017) of monthly monitoring of its sedimentology and bio-physical-chemistry, are therefore representative of the flow record available since 1902 (with the exception of the wet decade of 1960). Spatial heterogeneity within the Congo Basin has made it possible to establish an original hydrological classification of right bank tributaries, which takes into account vegetation cover and lithology to explain their hydrological regimes. Those of the Batéké plateau present a hydroclimatic paradox with hydrological regimes that are among the most stable on the planet, but also with some of the most pristine waters as a result of the intense drainage of an immense sandy-sandstone aquifer. This aquifer contributes to the regularity of the Congo River flows, as does the buffer role of the mysterious “Cuvette Centrale”. As the study of this last one sector can only be done indirectly, this paper presents its first hydrological regime calculated by inter-gauging station water balance. Without neglecting the indispensable in situ work, the contributions of remote sensing and numerical modelling should be increasingly used to try to circumvent the dramatic lack of field data that persists in this basin.

The present study was undertaken with the aim of contributing to the characterization of the nonstationary variability of the hydrological regime of the Kasai River using the wavelet analysis for 1940-1999. The rainfalls and discharge over Kasai Basin have marked fluctuations with a perceptible downward trend and some shift around 1950, 1960, 1970, 1983 and 1994. The results show that rainfalls over Kasai basin and the discharge at Ilebo station patterns exhibit a strong annual oscillation and some intermittent oscillations in 2-8 years (1950-1975, 1983-1995) and 8-16 years (1970-1999) time scales. The wavelet coherence analysis reveals a weak possible connection between hydrological variables (rainfalls, discharge) and climate indices relative to sea surface temperature and atmospheric circulation over Atlantic tropical, Indian and Pacific Oceans (coherence less than 0.55).