Africa, the continent where millions of poor people, especially children, die every year due to water scarcity and water shortages; Africa, the continent well-known for devastating droughts that have devastated entire nations; Africa, where climate change has turned the Sahara into a desert over the centuries, where a nomadic lifestyle among the sandy dunes and arid land is the norm.
That is the Africa that most of us know and love, but is it also the notoriously dry continent that is sitting on a vast reservoir of groundwater?
Is there a Huge Water Resource under Africa?
According to scientists, the total volume of water in underground aquifers in Africa is approximately one hundred times the amount found on the surface.
How is this possible on a continent where in excess of 300 million people do not have access to safe drinking water or adequate sanitation; where millions of children die of diarrhoea and other water-related illnesses?
Researchers from the British Geological Survey and University College London (UCL), after extensive analysis conducted across the continent, have been able to map in detail the amount and potential yield of this groundwater resource across the continent. Information from studies conducted on 283 aquifers and from existing hydro-geological maps from national governments has been collated and the results are astounding.
In a report published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the most detailed map yet of the scale and potential of this hidden vital resource has been made available and it shows a wealth of underground aquifers that many African countries currently that are currently designated as “water scarce” have substantial groundwater reserves.
According to Helen Bonsor from the BGS, one of the authors of the paper, “the greatest ground water storage is in northern Africa, in the large sedimentary basins, in Libya, Algeria and Chad.”
The question now is how best to access this liquid gold. Dr Alan MacDonald of the BGS, lead author of the study, told the BBC: “High-yielding boreholes should not be developed without a thorough understanding of the local groundwater conditions. Appropriately sited and developed boreholes for low yielding rural water supply and hand pumps are likely to be successful.”
According to the report, even the lowest storage aquifers in semi-arid areas that currently have very little rainfall have a residence time in the ground of 20 to 70 years. This is great news for some of the world’s poorest people, and we can only hope that the newly-discovered resource is tapped correctly so that Africa can rise and once more become a lush savannah for its inhabitants.
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