Africa Groundwater Maps Could Help Improve Access To Water (VIDEO)

Hissaeni Abdoulaye, 46, center, washes his face with water from an animal trough, after using a donkey to pull it up from a well which took twenty men a week to dig by hand, in a wadi near Tchyllah, a desert village in the Sahel belt of Chad, Thursday, April 19, 2012. UNICEF estimates that 127,000 children under 5 in Chad's Sahel belt will require lifesaving treatment for severe acute malnutrition this year. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Access to clean water remains a problem for millions in Africa, but new research suggests that there may be hope. Researchers from the British Geological Survey and University College London have mapped the quantity and potential yield of groundwater across the entire continent, explained PhysOrg.

They estimate that Africa's groundwater totals about 0.66 million cubic kilometers, which means the continent has over 100 times more water underground than on the surface. The study's authors calculated the groundwater using a database they compiled of "existing national hydrogeological maps as well as 283 aquifer studies from 152 publications."

The vast quantity of water could mean the potential for relief for the estimated 300 million Africans lacking access to safe drinking water, but it may not be easy. Reuters notes that the groundwater reserves are "no panacea" for Africa, but they could help "to cope with an expected sharp increase in demand for water as the continent's population increases."

Published this week in Environmental Research Letters, the study cautions that not all the groundwater may be accessible. A senior adviser for Global Water Partnership told Reuters, "It is not as simple as drilling big bore holes and seeing rice fields spring up everywhere. In some places it could be economically and technically feasible to use groundwater to reduce crop loss, but I would question whether that is true everywhere."

A spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program Nairobi, Kenya explained to Reuters, "The discovery of substantial water reserves under parts of Africa may well be good news for the continent but it may prove hard to access in the near term and, if not sustainably managed, could have unforeseen impacts."

Instead, the researchers explain, small-scale development of the water resources may be the best option. Study co-author Helen Bonsor told the BBC, "Our work shows that with careful exploring and construction, there is sufficient groundwater under Africa to support low yielding water supplies for drinking and community irrigation."

She also explained that if appropriately developed, the groundwater may help Africans deal with water fluctuations as a result of climate change. Bonsor said, "So at present extraction rates for drinking and small scale irrigation for agriculture groundwater will provide and will continue to provide a buffer to climate variability."

The research comes as experts warn that increasing water scarcity is likely to contribute to political instability in Africa and elsewhere. John Kufuor, a former president of Ghana and current head of the Sanitation and Water for All partnership, recently told Bloomberg, "People migrate to find water anywhere if there’s a scarcity situation. People have fought wars to access water."

To read the full study and see the researchers' water map, click here.

Related on HuffPost:

From our partners

• How Two Determined Sisters Set Up A Pet Rescue Pipeline To Colorado - Mother Nature Network
• Panel Finds Flaws In Hurricane Sandy Warning System - Climate Central
• 11 Images And Facts About A Misunderstood Creature - Mother Nature Network

Comments

[Alec Sevins]

11:40 PM on 04/24/2012

When water holes run dry and species like zebra or wildebeest go thirsty, we attribute it to natural carrying-capacity limits. But when people go thirsty it's framed as a "technical challenge that must be overcome." When will people admit that they can only push nature so far and remain viable?

[Alec Sevins]

11:34 PM on 04/24/2012

Look at the depletion of America's Ogallala aquifer to see why this is not wise to bank on. Africa needs serious birth control, not a marginally renewable source of water. Some projections show an insane 2 BILLION people in Africa by 2050 if birthrates continue on the current track and no major die-off happens.

[David Charin]

10:03 AM on 04/24/2012

maybe africa needs to seriously plan out her demographic growth, and limit population explosions in much of the Saharan savannah. thats the only true way for her populations to escape the dangers of famine and malnutrition. Why arent people pointing this out?
Its not like I'm calling for anything major. just subsidized birth control. studies show that half of all women in Africa and the Third World would use family planning if they could afford it. The planet cannot afford for uninhibited human population explosions. We should help family planning.
There'd be fewer mouths then tapping into the limited resource of water.

[Alec Sevins]

11:46 PM on 04/24/2012

You're correct, but most policy solutions involve endless supply-side resource-grabs, not physical restraint. Look at the propaganda put out by Catholic groups like PRI, who think 80 million more people each year on a finite planet is progress, and that magic solutions will come from the growing body of human intellect (which is really more like a mob).

[MrUniteUs]

08:33 PM on 04/23/2012

Good research by the Brits. Could be a game changer.

[LICWINKO]

06:13 PM on 04/22/2012

Where is Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton on this subject? oh, thats right, they only come after the "white" man not their own......

[Dave Moat]

09:42 AM on 04/23/2012

??????? yea

[MrUniteUs]

08:32 PM on 04/23/2012

Wow the way some people obsess over Jackson and Sharpton is truly amazing.

[dtschuck]

09:57 AM on 04/24/2012

I was surprised they didn't mention Alinsky and his book on radical revolution....its rare when they miss an opportunity.

[LICWINKO]

04:08 PM on 04/22/2012

Rural communities are the furthest from meeting the 2015 MDGs drinking water target. Globally only 27% of the rural population has water piped directly to their home and 24% rely on unimproved sources. Of the 884 million people without access to an improved water source, 746 million people (84%) live in rural areas. Sub-Saharan Africa has made the least progress in improved water sources since 1990, improving only 9% to 2006. In contrast, the Eastern Asian region saw a dramatic drop from 45% to 9% reliance on unimproved water in the same time period.

wonder why Africa has made the least progress out of all those countries?

[LICWINKO]

04:07 PM on 04/22/2012

hmmm, why is it we NEVER hear about other countries that aren't far behind Africa, "crying about safe drinking water", why just Africa?

Percentage of population with access to safe drinking water (2000)[19] Country % Country % Country % Country % Country %
Albania 97 Algeria 89 Azerbaijan 78 Brazil 87 Chile 93
China 75 Cuba 91 Egypt 97 India 84 Indonesia 78
Iran 92 Iraq 85 Kenya 57 North Korea 100 South Korea 92
Mexico 88 Moldova 92 Morocco 80 Mozambique 57 Pakistan 90
Peru 80 Philippines 86 Singapore 100 South Africa 86 Sudan 67
Syria 80 Turkey 82 Uganda 52 Venezuela 83 Zimbabwe 83
Note: All industrialized countries (as listed by UNICEF at 2000) with data available are at 100%.

[LICWINKO]

04:01 PM on 04/22/2012

why don't their own Country officials help them out? their officials sit back receive all of the "money" and laugh at their own people dying, how can anyone help, they just swoop in and take and could care less, no one can do anything until the African government has compassiion for their own but thus far, nothing, just greedy bast$$$s....

[Tye Poole]

03:47 PM on 04/22/2012

Lets see, we can drill and hit a nat's ass at 5000-ft with directional drilling , but no one can find water in Africa ? Right !

[skeptic88]

02:21 PM on 04/22/2012

Libya's massive water project to take advantage of these aquifers was just about ready to go until NATO bombed it.

It was no secret that Qadaafi was a dictator and was brutal with his opponents, and that the West used it to paint a false picture of someone who in the end was committing genocide against his people. What is less known is that the Libyan Megrahi was framed in the Lockerbie case, and that now there is strong evidence showing that the FBI lab evidence and the other evidence was tainted. What is very little known in the U.S. (unless you read the UN and independent reports) that Qadaafi built a state that used its oil wealth for the wellbeing of its people, by providing universal education, universal healthcare, old age insurance, and much more. That is why Libya had a 90 percent literacy rate, and a population that could get healthcare, including in Europe or the US at Libyan government expense if it was not available in Libya, while our nation is still unable. to take care of its own people as they are become more and more
impoverished.

Qadaafi built a state that took care of its people, and over time when the story is finally written, the world will begin to learn what the West destroyed and stole and what the Libyans and the other African peoples lost.

[skeptic88]

02:18 PM on 04/22/2012

The Huffington Post should be ashamed (as should be the researchers) of publishing this news as if if were newly discovered. This information was not only known years ago, but Gaddafi had just about completed the largest water project in the world to irrigate the desert and transfer water to needy populations elsewhere in Africa. The project was partially bombed by NATO on the pretext that government weapons were being stored with some of the construction equipment.

This project was a marvel for the whole world, and showed what a government committed to the wellbeing of its people and neighbors could do. It was built using initial US design butwith non-US companies, which did not sit well with Halliburton.

Now, after having stolen it, the West seems to be taking credit for what was completed by Qadaafi.

Meanwhile, Libya has been carved up into three different states, and we are working with Al Qaeda and the Gulf States, including Qatar to run the country and restart the Libyan oil operations, while the people formerly loyal to Qadaafi are being subjected to atrocities such as beheading, mutiliations of all types. and a future of poverty.

[libraryroom1]

02:11 PM on 04/22/2012

The world need another ICE AGE--Ice Age III. During each Ice Age, the least efficent species became extinct. Perhaps, humans have lived out their tenture on Earth. It is now time for everyone to say "good-bye" world.

[Jule Bee]

02:08 PM on 04/22/2012

Not to be a downer but
who's actually going to do the drilling?

[libraryroom1]

02:06 PM on 04/22/2012

The mining of all groundwater in Africa will be detrimental to all life, including humans, on the world. Groundwater is the natural way of storing water for all life during times of severe drought. People are adicted to the "i want it now" attitude.

[rad7402]

02:06 PM on 04/22/2012

The corrupt governments and warlords will ensure that all located water, be distributed fairly. After other countries go through the expense of drilling and making it available.