First SADC-GMI groundwater conference with BGR participation
Upon invitation of the SADC Groundwater Management Institute (GMI) more than 100 participants from southern Africa and international cooperation partners met for the first annual Groundwater Conference from 26-28 September 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Under the title "Adapting to Climate Change in the SADC Region through Water Security - A Focus on Groundwater", the participants discussed new results from the management of transboundary aquifers, the sharing of surface and groundwater, the impact of climate change on groundwater and the contribution of groundwater to economic development in southern Africa.
Participants of the first SADC-GMI Groundwater Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa, 26-28 September 2018
Source: SADC-GMI
The GMI is mandated as a centre of excellence by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to provide groundwater specific advice to the 16 SADC member countries and transboundary river basin commissions. The conference concluded that groundwater is key to navigating climate change in the region and throughout Africa. Other recommendations include a call for improved science-policy dialogue, better integration of groundwater in the management of transboundary river basin organizations, more effective groundwater monitoring systems, more funding for sustainable groundwater management and more national and regional knowledge sharing.
The Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) was invited to participate in two panel discussions. Ralf Klingbeil (BGR Hannover) underlined the long and good cooperation of Germany with national and regional partners in the groundwater sector in southern Africa. In particular, BGR and its national cooperation partners in various German development cooperation projects in the last decades have had good experience in groundwater exploration that can help advance a strategic, large-scale approach to exploring previously unknown and often deep aquifers in the region. For many SADC countries new deeper aquifers could during dry seasons build a substantially higher resilience of drinking water supplies, and thus better adaptation to a changing climate.
The current BGR project in Namibia "Groundwater Management in Northern Namibia" represented by staff from the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry (MAWF) and Martin Quinger and Christoph Lohe from BGR in Namibia, underlined the importance of a modern groundwater monitoring system as a crucial element for the sustainable management of strategic aquifers. The groundwater monitoring system was introduced in a pilot area. Since many contributions from other countries described the lack of such an approach as a fundamental problem, there was a great deal of interest in the Namibian strategy.
In addition, BGR project manager Tobias El-Fahem presented the ongoing BGR project in Zambia with the Water Resources Management Authority (WARMA) "Groundwater Management with a Focus on the Upper Kafue River Basin". The groundwater database prepared for Zambia and the recently published "Hydrogeological Map of Zambia 1:1,500,000" are already being requested by other SADC countries for the exchange of data and cross-border groundwater management within the SADC countries.