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Small reservoirs of Northern Côte d’Ivoire: Inventory and hydrological potentialities Volume 20, issue 1, janvier-février-mars 2009

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IRD UR 167, UMR 5119 Université Montpellier-II Case courrier 093 34095 Montpellier cedex 05 France, Service équipement rural et hydraulique DAF Guadeloupe Jardin botanique 97109 Basse-Terre Guadeloupe, MIE-DHH-Hydrologie 01 BP V 161 Abidjan 01 Côte d’Ivoire, IRD UR 167 Antenne de Bel-Air Route des Hydrocarbures BP 1386 Dakar Sénégal, IRD BP 6450134394 Montpellier cedex 05 France

Thousands of small reservoirs were built after the severe droughts that occurred in West Africa during the seventies and eighties. Numerous and scattered, these small masses of water constitute a perennial network in the northern part of the Côte d’Ivoire. Synoptic studies, associated to field works, made it possible to: 1) evaluate the contribution of these small reservoirs to the availability of water resources, particularly during the dry season; 2) assess at different scales the constraints that control their hydrological properties; 3) propose simple and fundamental relations to summarize their capacities; 4) highlight the growing impact that the anthropogenic evolution of watersheds exerts on their hydrological potentialities. If for a long time drought and decreased rainfall have been the principal constraints, it seems that in the future excess runoff could constitute one of the major threats to their continued existence.