By Emmanuel Obuobie, Yeboah Gyasi-Agyei, Martin Addi, Jacob Agyekum

The Building Climate-Resilience into Basin Water Management (CREAM) Project led by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Water Research Institute (CSIR-WRI), Ghana, has developed a novel high-resolution (1km x 1km and 5km x 5km gridded) rainfall and temperature (minimum and maximum) dataset that can be used for climate change impact assessment at the local to medium spatial scales. The data was developed jointly by Scientists from the CSIR-WRI (Ghana), the Griffith University (Australia), the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission – Ghana Space Science and Technology Institute (GSSTI) and the Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet), who are the partners that worked on the climate work package of the CREAM Project.

The novel dataset, which combines 14 satellite and re-analysis data with available observational data obtained from GMet, Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory (TAHMO), and 60 climate stations installed by the CREAM Project, was developed for a region that encompasses the Pra and Densu River Basins and a buffer of 20km around both basins, using a conditional merging approach and evaluated based on structural similarity index.

High resolution climate datasets, particularly precipitation data, are very important for accurate and reliable assessment of climate change impacts on various sectors at local to medium scales. However, the current climate station network in Ghana is coarse and most of the gauged data have gaps, making the results less reliable when used for impact assessment.

To create awareness of the high-resolution data and build capacity of relevant stakeholders in the development of the data, the CSIR-WRI, together with the Griffith University and the GSSTI, organised a day training workshop on 20^th March 2025 for fifteen climate scientists and hydrologists drawn from the Ghana Meteorological Agency, Ghana Hydrological Authority, CSIR-WRI, GSSTI, and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. The training facilitators first introduced the participants to the theory behind the methodology used for developing the dataset, followed by taking them through the R-script developed for executing the different analyses that constitute the methodology and finally provided participants with sample data to try their hands on developing their own high-resolution dataset in a hands-on session. At the end of the training, participants expressed their willingness and determination to apply the methodology to develop their own high resolution climate data for their climate change studies. The CREAM project has moved on from the training to develop the R-script used for developing the high-resolution dataset into an R-package, making it easier for interested persons to use. The CREAM team has published a journal article on the 1km x 1km precipitation data and the associated methodology in Nature’s Scientific Reports. The article can be accessed via https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-43075-0.

           A facilitator attending to participants at the workshop

                        Participants of the climate training workshop

Ing. Dr. Emmanuel Obuobie is the Coordinator/Principal Investigator of the CREAM Project and a Senior Research Scientist in Hydrology and Climate at the Water Research Institute, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Accra, Ghana.

Professor Yeboah Gyasi-Agyei, Adjunct Associate Professor at the Griffith University, Australia.

Martin Addi is a Climate Expert and an Assistant Research Scientist at the Ghana Space Science and Technology Institute, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, Accra, Ghana.

Dr. Jacob Agyekum is a Climate Expert and Research Scientist at the Water Research Institute, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Accra, Ghana.