Jude Cobbing was kind enough to send me this paper he authored with Bradley Hiller: Waking a Sleeping Giant: Realizing the Potential of Groundwater in Sub-Saharan Africa, World Development, Volume 122, October 2019, Pages 597-613. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.06.024
This is an excellent piece of work that flies in the face of the belief that SSA has little groundwater. I won't go into the reasons for that. Glad to see that it was not published in a groundwater or hydrologic journal but in one that might reach non-believers.
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Abstract
Unlike many global regions, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has yet to undergo a groundwater revolution. In this paper we confirm that for most SSA countries current groundwater use remains under 5% of national sustainable yield. This is likely to be a constraint on wider economic development and on addressing vulnerabilities to climate change and other shocks. Groundwater use has supported the process of economic structural change in other global regions; hence we derive an empirical model for groundwater use to support economic development, comprising trigger, boom and maturation phases. We identify that the trigger phase depends on political and economic (‘secondary’) factors, in addition to resource characteristics. The boom phase is described as ‘semi anarchic’, while the maturation phase is characterized by slowing abstractions but continued economic benefits. In SSA, we posit that the predominance of limiting secondary factors, coupled with a discourse of caution and focus on the maturation phase (more appropriate for other regions), is constraining the use of groundwater for economic development. We suggest that groundwater has the potential to be a foundational resource to support irrigated agriculture, urban and rural water security, and drought resilience across the region, as it has in many other global regions. We argue that overcoming the current barriers and costs to groundwater development can be offset by the benefits of regional socioeconomic development and increased resilience. In the context of enduring poverty and recurrent humanitarian crises in SSA, this new synthesis of information suggests that such an underutilization of sustainable groundwater is unjustifiable. Stakeholders active in the region should prioritize groundwater development to help facilitate a transition to higher value-added activities and greater regional prosperity and resilience, and ensure that measures are put in place for this to be done sustainably. We conclude with some ideas to help trigger such development in SSA.
Highights
•Low renewable groundwater use in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) constrains development.
•Poverty, demographic changes and shock events make groundwater development urgent.
•An empirical model shows political economy factors trigger groundwater development.
•A global discourse of caution inadvertently hinders groundwater development in SSA.
•A groundwater boom is key to irrigation, water security and drought resilience.
Cutting to the chase...
Conclusions and Recommendations
We confirm, at regional scale, that SSA hosts significant groundwater resources, often in areas where it could be most impactful, and which have the capacity to contribute significantly as a baseline resource for regional development. Despite the wealth of regional resources, groundwater use is thought to remain under 5% of sustainable yield for most countries in SSA, meaning that significant renewable resources are currently dormant.We substantiate that ‘secondary’ or political-economy factors are the primary impediments to further groundwater development in SSA. There is further work to be conducted to understand political economy factors, their complex interactions, and how to trigger them. This work will allow appropriate policy to be developed, to remove bottlenecks.
We identify a predominance of limiting, rather than enabling conditions in groundwater development, which have discouraged investment at scale. Based on the development cycle of groundwater in other parts of the world which have already experienced trigger-boom-maturation phases, the international discourse on groundwater has shifted towards conservation and remediation, which may inadvertently be denying SSA its opportunity to experience social and economic benefits derived from groundwater development.
We also argue that attention and funding for groundwater projects should be of similar scale to that afforded to surface water projects in SSA. Groundwater has the potential to act as the foundational resource to underpin regional development in sectors such as irrigated agriculture, urban and rural water security, and drought resilience, just as it has in other global regions. We argue that it is now unconscionable and unjustifiable not to develop SSA’s groundwater resources.
Finally, while the primary intentions of this paper are to inform readers about SSA’s renewable groundwater potential and encourage discussion on future groundwater development actions for economic and humanitarian purposes, we draw on our empirical model to offer some non-prescriptive elements of a roadmap to help support this process:
- •Dissemination of study findings to decision-makers and policy-makers in SSA countries, highlighting the significant latent renewable groundwater potential and the importance of secondary (political economy) factors in triggering wider groundwater development.
- •Encourage improved resolution and coverage of hydrogeological data, including exploration of proxy indicators, as appropriate.
- •Provide financial and technical resourcing for adequate groundwater-specific investigations to be included in national water resource assessments in all SSA countries.
- •Educate and encourage international institutions to prioritize groundwater development support in SSA, including bolstering internal technical capacities.
- •Establish a taskforce (comprising relevant stakeholders such as the UN agencies, multilateral development banks, disaster relief organizations, local community representatives, etc.) to explore the potential benefits of a strategic network of deep groundwater boreholes in recurrent (and predicted future) drought hotspots.
- •Explore linkages between groundwater development and emerging climate (financing and convening) mechanisms to promote adaptation and resilience building.
Simultaneously, we encourage countries to help themselves whilst also calling upon international and regional institutions to provide financial and technical support to help realize SSA’s pending groundwater revolution.
Disabuse yourself of the notion that there is no groundwater of consequence in SSA...now!
Enjoy!
"All monkeys cannot hang on the same branch." ~ Kenyan proverb
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