Presented by IWMI's Karen Villholth in line with the World Water Day 2022 commemoration held in Ghana

1. Groundwater and the Untapped
Potential for Building Climate
Resilience in West Africa
Karen G. Villholth
Principal Researcher
IWMI
Promoting sustainable groundwater irrigation for
building climate resilience in West Africa
IWMI, Ghana, 18 March 2022

2. @
United Nations (2022)

3. Outline
• Development challenges in West Africa
• Groundwater resources in West Africa
• What do the IPCC AR6 reports say?
• What the IPCC reports do not say regarding
the role of groundwater for securing food and
livelihoods in West Africa
• Unleashing the GW potential for food security
and resilience

4. The world on its edge

5. Development challenges in
West Africa
• The region is already warming 1.5 times faster than the global
average.
• Congruence between fragility, conflict, climate change and water
insecurity.
• Climate change as a threat multiplier for armed conflict in the West
African region.
• Climate-driven changes pose a serious threat to food security.
Helping secure water to livelihoods is key to resilience.
• The Sahel is moving south at a rate of around 1,400 square miles a
year. This will lead to even greater displacement and competition
around water resources.
• Demographers predict that 70 to 95 million people could inhabit
West Africa’s coastal cities by 2050. Scientists estimate that around
5,500 km of the region’s coastlines could be severely degraded by
rising sea levels. Igarapé Institute (2021)

6. The 3D view of water resources

7. Percentage of groundwater-related targets per SDG
Sustainable
Development
Goal
(SDG)
Groundwater
and SDG
interlinkages
Guppy et al. (2018)

8. What do the IPCC AR6 reports say?
IPCC WGI AR6: Observed increase in
river flooding; increases in drying
and agricultural and ecological
droughts as well as delayed onset
and retreat of the monsoon season
IPCC WGII AR6: One regional study in
West Africa found that currently
promising management would no
longer be effective under future
climate

9. Hydrogeology of Sub-Saharan Africa
MacDonald (2005)

10. Villholth and Altchenko (2014)
Transboundary aquifers of West Africa

11. Transboundary aquifers of West Africa
IGRAC (2021)
Irhazer-
Illuemeden
Basin
Lake Chad Basin
Volta
Basin
Senegalo-
Mauretanian
Basin
Taudeni Basin

12. Cuthbert et al., 2019
GW level rise in Sahel
Cuthbert et al. (2019)

13. Smallholder irrigation
in West Africa

14. Pastoralism partially or fully
dependent on groundwater

15. Drivers Constraints
GW
irrigation
Limits
Potential

16. Altchenko and Villholth (2015)
Uncommitted
groundwater
irrigation
potential
Percentage of
present GWI area

17. Food value chain
GW
Strengthening
business and
enabling
environment
Food value
chain

18. Extension services
Policies
Groundwater
value chain
Groundwater value chain
Groundwater Wells Pumps
Power/
energy
Strengthening
business and
enabling
environment

19. Limits to GW irrigation
100 L/d for
domestic uses
408 L/d for livestock
(10 cattle and 10 poultry)
8,200 L/d for irrigation
(0.3 ha crop, 500 mm/yr)
Water requirements for a smallholder household:

20. Prospects for enhanced groundwater
irrigation outcomes
Water saving: ~40%
Energy saving: ~30%
Increased crop productivity: ~70%
Decreased nutrient losses: ~60% Magombeyi et al., 2020

21. Citizen science
Goldin et al. (2021)

22. River Goulbi de Maradi, SE Niger & N Nigeria
a b

23. White Volta
UNEP/GEF (2013)
Transboundary flood risk
from Bagre Dam in Burkina
Faso threatens people and
livelihoods in Ghana.

24. Underground Transfer of Floods
Alam and Pavelic (2020)

25. Pavelic et al. (2020)
Underground Transfer of Floods

26. Groundwater and climate change
adaptation
http://gripp.iwmi.org/natural-infrastructure/

27. AMCOW Pan-Africa Groundwater Program
AMCOW (2022)

28. GRIPP objective
Sustainable groundwater management for livelihoods, food security, climate
resilience and economic growth
http://gripp.iwmi.org/

29. Conclusions
• Great potential for smallholder GW irrigation in
West Africa
• Drivers: food insecurity, limited livelihood
options, climate change, urbanization,
increasing GW levels in some areas
• Focus on the groundwater irrigation value chain
• Women are key for success
• Local management of resources is critical
• Develop transboundary aquifers for livelihoods
• Collaboration across regions and pan-Africa

30. References
African Ministers’ Council on Water (2022), International Water Management Institute (IWMI), and British Geological Survey (BGS)
(2022). Groundwater for Africa’s Resilience and Socioeconomic Transformation. A Call for greater attention to investing in groundwater
to sustainably meet growing water demands under global environmental change. White Paper. ISBN 978-978-56367-5-2.
Alam, M.F. and P. Pavelic, 2020. Underground Transfer of Floods for Irrigation (UTFI): exploring potential at the global scale. Colombo, Sri
Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI). 58p. (IWMI Research Report 176). doi: https://doi.org/10.5337/2020.204.
Altchenko, Y. & K.G. Villholth (2015). Mapping irrigation potential from renewable groundwater in Africa – a quantitative hydrological
approach. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 1055-1067, DOI:10.5194/hess-19-1055-2015.
Cuthbert, M.O., R.G. Taylor, G. Favreau., M.C. Todd., M. Shamsudduha, K.G. Villholth., A.M. MacDonald, B.R. Scanlon, D.O.V. Kotchoni, J.-
M. Vouillamoz, F.M.A. Lawson, P.A. Adjomayi, J. Kashaigili, D. Seddon, J.P.R. Sorensen, G.Y. Ebrahim, M. Owor, P.M. Nyenje, Y. Nazoumou,
I. Goni, B.I. Ousmane, T. Sibanda, M.J. Ascott, D.M.J. Macdonald, W. Agyekum, Y. Koussoubé, H. Wanke, H. Kim, Y. Wada, M.-H. Lo, T. Oki,
and N. Kukuric (2019). Observed controls on resilience of groundwater to climate variability in sub-Saharan Africa. Nature.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1441-7.
Goldin, J., R. Mokomela, T. Kanyerere, and K.G. Villholth (2021). Diamonds on the soles of their feet: Groundwater monitoring in the
Hout Catchment, South Africa. J. Educ. Sustain. Dev. 15:1, 25-50. doi:10.1177/09734082211014435.
Guppy, L., P. Uyttendaele, K.G. Villholth, and V. Smakhtin (2018). Groundwater and Sustainable Development Goals: Analysis of
Interlinkages. UNU-INWEH Report Series, Issue 04. United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, Hamilton,
Canada. 23 pp. ISBN: 978-92-808-6092-4.
Igarapé Institute (2021). West Africa at the Precipice: Visualizing Climate Stress and Insecurity. bit.ly/3KW9UO1.
IGRAC (International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre). UNESCO-IHP (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization-Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme) (2021). Transboundary Aquifers of the World. 1:50,000,000. Edition 2021.
Delft, Netherlands.
IPCC WGI AR6 (2021). Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y.
Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B.
Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. IPCC WGI AR6 (2022).

31. References, cont.
IPCC, WGII AR6 (2022). Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K.
Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press.
MacDonald, A.M. (2005). Developing groundwater – a guide for rural water supply. ITDG Publishing.
Magombeyi, M., J. Lautze, and K.G. Villholth (2020). Agricultural water and nutrient management solutions to support smallholder
irrigation schemes: Lessons from the Ramotswa Transboundary Aquifer Area, Limpopo River Basin. Project Brief. Transboundary Water
Management in Southern Africa.
Pavelic, P., Alok Sikka, M. F. Alam, B.R. Sharma, L. Muthuwattae, N. Eriyagama, K.G. Villholth, S. Shalsi, V. K. Mishra, S.K. Jha, C.L. Verma,
N. Sharma, R.V. Ratna, S. K. Rout, L. Kant, M. Govindan, P. Gangopadhyay, B. Karthikeyan, P. Chinnasamy, and V. Smakhtin (2020). Utilizing
floodwaters for recharging depleted aquifers and sustaining irrigation: Lessons from multi-scale assessments in the Ganges River Basin,
India. (Groundwater Solutions Initiative for Policy and Practice (GRIPP) Case Profile Series 04.
UNEP/GEF (2013). Volta Basin Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis. UNEP-GEF Volta Project, UNEP/GEF/Volta/RR 4/2013.
United Nations (2022). World Water Development Report 2022. Making the Invisible Visible, Paris, UNESCO. ISBN 978-92-3-100507-7.
Villholth, K.G. and Y. Altchenko (2014). Transboundary Aquifer Mapping and Management in Africa. Leaflet. 8 pp. IWMI.

32. Thank You
Karen Villholth
k.villholth@cigar.org
http://gripp.iwmi.org/
Twitter: @KVillholth