The WASCAL Data Management Plan (DMP) describes the data to be created in WASCAL and the measures, methods, tools, standards and rules to warrant its proper management, archiving and exchange over the long term. The DMP was written at the beginning of the WASCAL project in 2012 by using information on data collection campaigns planned by scientists in the WASCAL Core Research Program and on bio-physical time series data to be provided by observation networks in the 10 WASCAL member countries.

This gridded precipitation set is a test data set (BETA VERSION). The daily precipitation data set was created using a spatial interpolation technique using ordinary kriging. The gridded data set is based on 410 daily observed precipitation time series from stations located in Ghana, Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso and neighboring countries. They have been compiled from global (GHCN-daily), regional (e.g. AMMA-SYNOP, GLOWA-Volta) and national archives from the meteorological services of Burkina Faso, Ghana and Benin. The temporal coverage of the daily time series ranges from 1940 to 2013. The quality of the spatial interpolation was compared to various interpolation techniques (nearest neighbor, inverse distance and external drift kriging).

The meteorological dataset consists of uncorrected half-hourly meteorological measurements for seven climate stations and three eddy covariance stations. The stations belong to the hydro-meteorological network established for the Vea and Sissili watershed in Southern Burkina Faso and Northern Ghana. The dataset contains seven meteorological variables: the mean incoming shortwave radiation [W/m2], the mean incoming longwave radiation [W/m2], the mean air temperature [°C], the mean horizontal wind speed [m/s], the mean horizontal wind direction [°], the mean air pressure [hPa], the mean relative humidity [g/kg] and the total precipitation amount [mm]. The data set is available from October 2012 to October 2016. More recent informatoin and other meteorological variables such as heat fluxes can be provided by request. Further information about the data sets and the meteorological network will be given in a future publication which was recently submitted to a special issue on “Hydrological Observatories” of the Vadose Zone Journal.

The meteorological dataset consists of infilled half-hourly meteorological measurements for seven climate stations and three eddy covariance stations. The stations belong to the hydro-meteorological network established for the Vea and Sissili watershed in Southern Burkina Faso and Northern Ghana. The dataset contains seven meteorological variables: the mean incoming shortwave radiation [W/m2], the mean incoming longwave radiation [W/m2], the mean air temperature [°C], the mean horizontal wind speed [m/s], the mean sea level pressure [hPa], the mean specific humidity [g/kg] and the total precipitation amount [mm]. The data set is available from 1st of October 2012 to 31st of December 2013. The infilling of measurements was done using a spatiotemporal infilling algorithm based on an inverse distance approach. Other meteorological information such as heat fluxes can be also provided by request. Further information about the data sets and the meteorological network will be given in a future publication which was recently submitted to a special issue on “Hydrological Observatories” of the Vadose Zone Journal.