Groundwater Case Study Assessment

As discussed, groundwater varies hugely throughout Africa. As does population, socioeconomic position and demand for water. Therefore, each case for groundwater needs to be judged individually, a mammoth task. The inherent variability means that traditional proxies are actually quite ineffective as different variables carry different weightings for different regions.

Pavelic et al. have published a book assessing 'Groundwater availability and use in Sub-Saharan Africa: A review of 15 countries'. In the book they take fifteen country scale case studies: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. If anyone has a particular interested in any of the case studies I'd definitely go over them, on average they're only about 20 pages and all written by country experts.

In later posts I'm going to analyse groundwater in Ghana, a country I have a specific interest in  I've spent time in Ghana doing charity work and observed groundwater pumps and rainwater collection schemes.

The conclusions of Pavelic et al's book are as follows, note how they do fall into the trap of trying to assign a score or a proxy measure to such water resources just analyse each on their own merit:

Through not ranking these issues, the book highlights the problems each country has with harnessing groundwater without comparing them.