Examining transboundary aquifers in Africa

Unlike transboundary river basins, transboundary aquifers have received little attention thus far. This is perhaps due to a lack of understanding about how these systems work, but with some of these aquifers found in the world's most water-stressed regions we simply could not afford them any longer. This gap in knowledge has been the primary problem the Internationally Shared Aquifer Resource Management (ISARM) Programme has been set up to address (Puri and Aureli, 2005). ISARM aims to encourage cooperation between nations to eliminate and to encourage more scientific research that provides the data required for a better understanding of transboundary river basins.
The establishment of ISARM can perhaps be justified by the issues that have arose from the intensive use of transboundary aquifers: the consequences of intensive extraction may take place in the upstream riparian country and the extracting nation; the impacts of salt water intrusion and pollution dispersing through groundwater flows. Issues from intensive extraction is accentuated in the case of transboundary aquifers with little recharge as these aquifers are essentially a finite resource. As such, scientific data and international agreements are imperative for the management of these aquifers (Puri and Nasser, 2003).
Groundwater aquifers are especially important in Africa, where groundwater storage is estimated to be 100 times of annual renewable freshwater resources (MacDonald et al., 2012). Groundwater, given its relative independence from meteorological changes and good water quality, is also viewed as a natural buffer against climate change. Perhaps luckily, much of this groundwater is accessible and could be used to sustain community handpumps. Given this fact, groundwater could perhaps be regarded as a viable supplement to overground freshwater resources and a back-up source of freshwater in times of climate variability. However, it is important to note that groundwater storage in most African regions are unable to support large scale irrigation schemes and national governments must keep this in mind whilst exploiting aquifers.
Nevertheless, research on transboundary aquifers in southern Africa gives a cause for hope. Cobbing et al. (2008) suggests that conflicts over the use of transboundary aquifers are not always inevitable and the managing of these aquifers may not be as challenging as previously thought. Instead, they point to the need for technical cooperation and data sharing between nations, which is something that ISARM will be able to address in the near future.
In conclusion, transboundary aquifers in Africa have a lot of potential in solving some of the water-related problems in the continent, but a much better understanding of these aquifers and the processes taking place in them will be required before a suitable framework of management could be produced.