Africa's lack of water?

In 2016 millions of people in over a dozen countries (specifically the Horn of Africa and Southern Africa) faced severe drought, resulting in famine and starvation. The WHO warned that Somalia was at the highest risk, and could possibly face its 3^rd famine in 25 years (Africa News, 2016). These droughts have continued into 2017, hitting the East of Africa and Southern Africa who are feeling the impact of consecutive seasons of droughts that have ‘scorched harvests and ruined lives’ (IRIN, 2017). Livestock deaths and fire sales have meant that pastoralists have little to sell, and cumulative bad harvests make recovery hard for small-scale farmers. But studies suggest that Africa could have billions of cubic meters of untapped groundwater resources?

This is the same story for many parts of Africa, where farmers have to rely on irregular rainfall and depleted surface water, while these huge sources of groundwater are ignored. According to research from the British Geological Society Africa’s subterranean water amounts to an estimated 660,000 cubic kilometres. Therefore increasing reliable water supplies throughout Africa will depend on the development of groundwater (Giordano 2009, MacDonald and Calow 2009). Figure 1 exemplifies my argument, many countries which are designated as ‘water scarce’ according to Fallenmark’s water stress index (WSI) have substantial groundwater reserves, but it is accessing these reserves which is the problem.

Figure 1: (a) Groundwater storage measure in water depth (mm) and (b) total groundwater storage by country in Africa

So this is more a problem of access rather than availability no? Sub-Saharan Africa has areas with high levels of groundwater, the DRC alone has more than 50,000 mm of groundwater and parts of Botswana, Zambia and Angola have between 25,000 – 50,000 mm of groundwater. Now, this isn’t to say the whole of SSA has plentiful availability of groundwater, but potential for irrigation definitely exists if adequate investment is found.

I will now compare two countries, Burkina Faso and Ethiopia, both countries have high groundwater potentials but access to water and groundwater availability varies dramatically between both, which has led to two very different sets of results.

The cost of drilling in Ethiopia is very high due to limited drilling companies and the high price of machinery and accessories. Therefore the development of groundwater resources requires huge financial investment in both physical (machinery and accessories) and human capital (training people to use these drills). There is also the issue of maintenance cost and reparations which is a huge problem in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia all drilling equipment is imported (i.e. vehicles, spare parts, fuel, oil etc) with depreciation costs accounting for 33 to 42 percent, material costs for 22-25 and labour/overheads/profit margin and VAT accounting for 33-45% raising prices. Although drilling rates vary, on average wells cost circa 18,000USD to build, up to double what it costs in Burkina Faso, which is why not as many have been built.

Despite Ethiopia’s high groundwater potential and opportunity to overcome droughts no significant attention has been given to increasing groundwater access. Therefore, people in areas of Ethiopia with good groundwater access have started to exploit these resources through dug wells, shallow wells and sometimes deep wells. This has resulted in declining water tables and will, unless addressed properly, generate a severe lack of water in the future.

Groundwater abstraction in Burkina Faso is mainly done through boreholes and wells. In 2009 the country had 38, 318 boreholes and 20,527 wells. This is in comparison to 2001, when there were only 24, 350 wells, so since 2001 well construction has increased by more than 50% (IWMI, 2012). Burkina Faso is a country in SSA with one of the highest rates of growth of access to water supplies between 1990 and 2008, with 76% having access to an improved water source (compared to 38% in Ethiopia). In Burkina the average time it takes to drill a borehole is just 2 days, compared to 45 days in Senegal (Antea, 2007 REF). The cost varies from 10,000 to 20,000USD, depending on depth, mobilization, time drilling, equipment etc.

Considering that Burkina Faso is a small landlocked country, if well developed, groundwater could play a crucial role in boosting small scale irrigation and rapidly increasing food production. Although data relating to groundwater is scarce, if borehole construction continues at this rate small-scale irrigation would likely expand, increasing crop yields and helping to avoid famine during times of low-rainfall as alternative water sources would be available.  

This brief comparison shows how investment plays a key role in unlocking groundwater potential in African countries which have these water resources. Since 2001 Burkina Faso has made a concerted effort to increase well and borehole construction and this has paid off, as can be seen in the country’s access to an improved water source. Ethiopia, on the otherhand, has lacked this initial investment, which is why prices remain high and access to an improved water source low as boreholes and wells are few and far between. Therefore a lack of access points (due to low investment) is a key reason why small-scale irrigation schemes have not reached their potential in Ethiopia.