Groundwater resources in Africa 'may be hard to access'

Groundwater resources in Africa may be hard to access, according to experts, because of political and technical challenges in the continent as well as significant cost implications.

Continent-wide quantitative maps were recently revealed by researchers which showed that Africa may be sitting on a vast reservoir of groundwater. According the report, conducted by researchers from the British Geological Survey and University College London (UCL), the total volume of water in aquifers underground is 100 times the amount found on the surface.

Findings by the team were heralded by some as a solution to clean water supplies and farming troubles. However, experts have recently revealed that accessing the water supplies may not be all that straightforward, with political, technical and cost challenges creating significant road blocks.

According to recent reports, the largest aquifers are in northern Africa, mostly in Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya and Sudan. This poses a problem that is first and foremost political. All the aforementioned countries have experienced some degree of political unrest of late. This could mean that projects to uncover the water reserves could take a significant amount of time to get underway, and would also be difficult to manage efficiently.

Mohamed Gad, professor of hydrology at the Desert Research Center in Egypt, told SciDev.Net that there are also several other practical considerations to make.

He said: "The study makes it clear that these groundwater [aquifers] are far from population centres." As well as this, most of the aquifers are deep underground, making them costly to develop.

Gad said North African countries need to develop extraction technologies, have the political will, and find new funds to make use of the groundwater. He added: "North African countries need to resume negotiations about the management of the shared groundwater, as most of the aquifers in this region are crossing borders between more than two countries."

Posted by Joseph Hutton