Groundwater Resources Management in the Horn of Africa and Southern Africa

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Episode recorded on October 6, 2023
Episode released on February 08, 2024

Seifu Kebede is a professor of hydrology at the University of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa since 2019. Prior to that he worked for many years at the Addis Ababa University, focusing on water issues in the Horn of Africa. He published Groundwater in Ethiopia. Features, Numbers and Opportunities, Springer Hydrogeology, ISBN 978-3-642-30390-6. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 2013. 

Highlights | Transcript

1. Seifu presented a keynote lecture at the 50^th Intl. Association of Hydrogeology Congress held in Cape Town, S. Africa. His keynote focused on expansion of groundwater use from current low level to support human and economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa. The conference included presentations on mining and groundwater related to expansion of mining in Southern Africa linked to the green transition. 
2. Cape Town approaching Day Zero during extreme drought in 2018. Adaptation strategies:
   1.  Managed Aquifer Recharge in Atlantis using treated wastewater and storm water in Atlantis, N of Cape Town.
   2. 100% reliance on six surface reservoirs prior to Day Zero. 
   3. Expansion of groundwater development in aquifers and conjunctive management of surface water and groundwater. 
3. Horn of Africa (parts of Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia): 6 seasons of drought linked to La Nina. Upcoming El Nino conditions projected to cause flooding; explore groundwater development to support drinking water and cattle, heavy reliance on pastoralism. Positive and negative impacts of flooding, including groundwater recharge and mortality. 
4. Horn of Africa, geologically complex. Some strategic shallow productive aquifers (e.g., Murti, Bulal, Awash aquifers). Important to avoid overexploitation and water quality degradation. 
5. Sensors and telemetry operated by Dr. Evan Thomas (Univ. Colorado) to monitor functionality of wells (Thomas et al., 2021) and repair wells using programs such as Fundifix (private/public partnership, Univ. Oxford). 
6. Adaptation strategies to floods and droughts: 
   1. Awash basin: floods and surface water recharge groundwater (Birhanu, Kebede et al., 2021)
   2. Sand dams in Kenya retain flood water longer to enhance groundwater recharge
   3. Boreholes drilled near surface water to capture surface water
   4. Terracing on land to reduce runoff and sediment erosion
7. Lack of comprehensive reporting, challenge for management; survival bias, only report positive results, limited reporting of failed wells or high salinity or high fluoride water. People to people data sharing dominant in Horn of Africa. Important to talk to well drillers. Grey literature. 
8. Communicating and translating hydrogeology to form that local communities and farmers can understand; e.g., Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency; extension agents; simple maps showing where materials diggable etc, well spacing tools, well depth tools for storage etc., to irrigate ~ 1 ha of land. (Calow et al., 2018). 
9. World Bank, Farmer Led Irrigation Development. 
10. Pockmarks, fairy circles (Guirado et al., PNAS, 2023), hydrologic significance in Horn of Africa, shallow groundwater, geophysical exploration, geochemical tracers, protect these from overexploitation and degradation. 
11. Southern African Development Community Groundwater Management Institute (SADC GMI): groundwater monitoring, governance, policy development. 
12. Excellent example of groundwater monitoring for sustainable development in Sandveld region in S Africa by Julian Conrad at GEOSS. 
13. Concern in Southern Africa to protect wetlands and understand connectivity to nearby groundwater, important Ramsar sites.
14. Going forward: conjunctive use of groundwater and surface water, smallholder farmers, groundwater for drinking and small-scale irrigation, feasible even in shallow basement aquifers.