Groundwater Data

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Africa Groundwater Atlas >> Resource pages >> Groundwater Data


This page provides an overview of groundwater data, with a particular focus on Africa; and links to further information and to available groundwater data sources.

 This page is still being developed. Please check back soon for more information.


Please cite page as: Africa Groundwater Atlas. 2023. Groundwater Data. British Geological Survey. Accessed [date you accessed the information]. Weblink.


See also the Groundwater Monitoring page.

You may also be interested in an inventory of national groundwater databases in Africa, and in long term groundwater datasets in Africa.


What is Groundwater Data?

Groundwater data usually refers to measured physical or chemical information on groundwater, which is collected at points where groundwater is accessible from the surface - usually boreholes, wells or springs.

Much useful groundwater data can be collected during drilling and testing of new boreholes. Other data must be collected from ongoing groundwater monitoring (see the groundwater monitoring page for more information on this).


Examples of useful and important groundwater data that can be collected during borehole drilling and testing:

  • borehole drilling logs with geological and hydrogeological information, such as aquifer lithology, water strikes and borehole construction information.
  • test pumping data: direct and derived data from hydrogeological tests, usually on boreholes, including pumping rates and associated drawdowns; measured aquifer properties; and estimated sustainable yields.
  • one-off groundwater levels.
  • one-off groundwater chemistry and microbiology.


Examples of useful and important groundwater data that must be collected by ongoing monitoring (over time):

  • groundwater levels, usually measured in boreholes or wells. These may be rest or static water levels (unaffected by groundwater pumping) or pumped water levels.
  • groundwater chemistry and microbiology. This can include a wide range of parameters from the simple to complex: pH, alkalinity or water conductivity (SEC); inorganic chemistry including major ions such as calcium, magnesium and sodium; minor ions such as iron and manganese; or trace elements such as arsenic or cadmium; organic chemistry parameters such as nutrients and carbon or oil pollutants; microbiological parameters, often related to pathogens such as E-coli, giardia, cryptospiridium or viruses; environmental tracers including stable isotopes (such as deuterium and oxygen-18) and radioactive isotopes (such as tritium); and dissolved gases such as CFCs, methane and carbon dioxide.


It is a challenge to collect, check, store and manage groundwater data so that it can be used effectively for groundwater development and management. Much of the information on this page relates to how and where groundwater data are stored and managed - e.g. groundwater databases - from where the data can be accessed and used. For example, an inventory of national groundwater databases in Africa.

Issues relating to collecting and checking (quality assurance or QA) groundwater data are covered here in less detail, but there are some links to further resources on these topics.

Who collects groundwater data?

Strategic groundwater data storage and management, at a national or sub-national scale, is usually the responsibility of government institutions. Data collection may be done by government agencies themselves - this is often the case for ongoing groundwater monitoring - or there may be a requirement for individuals or organisations involved in relevant activities, in particular borehole drilling, to report data to the relevant government agency.

Groundwater data is also sometimes collected by individual research projects, for specific purposes. This data is usually limited spatially to the project area, and in time to the length of the project. It is usually not available beyond the relevant project, although in some cases, data may be shared with national government bodies and/or NGOs or other organisations involved in groundwater development and management, and/or on project websites.

Some groundwater data are collected and stored by private organisations or NGOs, often as part of wider groundwater or water supply and management data. For example, water point mapping by NGOs working on water supply ( Water Point Data), which can include some groundwater data, or data collected by mining companies or other private companies as part of their operations ( Groundwater Data Sources: Project-based and Private Sector).

How is groundwater data stored?

Often, groundwater data collected during drilling and testing is stored separately from groundwater monitoring data.

Most countries have a national borehole inventory that is intended to store geological and groundwater data from the time of borehole drilling, reported by drillers and/or NGOs or other organisations active in developing water supply boreholes. These inventories can include borehole depths, drilling logs with geological information (such as lithological descriptions of the geological units drilled through), borehole construction information (such as the presence and length of borehole screens or plain casing, and whether or not the borehole has been sealed to prevent unwanted surface water inflows), and a one-off borehole water level measured during borehole drilling or immediately after construction. They may also include geophysical data from borehole siting, and test pumping data from borehole testing.

Many countries also have one or more national groundwater (monitoring) databases intended to store ongoing (time series) data from strategic monitoring networks for groundwater level or groundwater quality. Such monitoring networks are not always fully operational, or representative of groundwater across a whole country; and monitoring data are not always easily available.

The Atlas has compiled a catalogue of national groundwater databases in Africa, which provides brief details of known national borehole inventories and monitoring databases for each country in Africa. There is also a separate list below of countries with online groundwater databases.

Water Point Data

Groundwater data is different from water point data. In recent years, the WASH sector has seen huge improvements in water point mapping and, therefore, in the availability of water point data in Africa, and globally. Many new procedures, databases and digital apps have been developed - designed to allow more efficient collection, storage and availability of water point data, at project, organisation and national level, including the development of online databases.

However, although most water points in Africa are groundwater sources, water point databases usually contain little groundwater data. Usually, therefore, they do not provide much or any information about the groundwater resource on which the water points rely.

Some examples of data portals or digital technologies for water point data collection and management are:

An overview of groundwater data in Africa

The sections below provide information on key sources of groundwater data in Africa: at a continental scale (including global datasets that include Africa); a regional scale; a national scale, including an inventory of national groundwater databases in Africa; and at a project scale or relating to private sector data. These data sources include groundwater source (borehole, well and spring) data and/or groundwater monitoring data.

Groundwater monitoring is also discussed specifically on the Groundwater monitoring page.

The long term groundwater datasets in Africa page describes available long term (multi-decadal) groundwater monitoring data for sites in Africa.

Groundwater Data Sources: Africa-wide or Global

Chronicles Consortium

The Chronicles Consortium initiative is collating long term - multi-decadal - records of groundwater levels from around Africa. There is a dedicated Atlas page on long term groundwater datasets in Africa, which provides more information on the Chronicles Consortium project and data.

IGRAC Global Groundwater Information System

IGRAC hosts the Global Groundwater Information System (GGIS) - an interactive, web-based portal to groundwater-related information. This includes some groundwater level monitoring data collated from a number of countries, including some in Africa, in the Global Groundwater Monitoring Network (GGMN).



UNHCR Refugee Site Borehole Data

The UNHCR have an online WASH GIS portal, which includes groundwater data from water boreholes at UNHCR refugee sites, including borehole locations, depths, casing diameters, rest (static) water levels and estimated safe yields.


EAWAG Groundwater Assessment Platform - groundwater quality data

EAWAG (the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology) developed the Groundwater Assessment Platform, with information on geogenic (naturally occurring in groundwater) contaminants. This database includes some measured data on groundwater arsenic and fluoride concentrations, including in Africa.


Groundwater Data Sources: Regional within Africa

SADC

An extensive report describes the State of Groundwater Data Collection and Data Management in SADC Member States (Sterckx et al. 2019).

The SADC Groundwater Information Portal (SADC-GIP) is an online platform for sharing groundwater-related data and information in the SADC region. It includes many hydrogeological maps and databases.


Groundwater Data Sources: Country-specific / National

Most countries in Africa have national groundwater data holdings, such as a water borehole inventory, a groundwater level database or a groundwater quality database.

Inventory of national groundwater databases in Africa

The Atlas has created an inventory of Africa National Groundwater Databases, which provides brief details of known national groundwater databases in Africa.

Some of these databases are available online, and they are listed below.


Online groundwater databases for countries in Africa

Few countries (in Africa or elsewhere around the world) currently make such databases widely available, either in person or online, so that even where groundwater data exists at a national level, it is often not easily visible or accessible. The Africa national groundwater databases inventory includes information on whether, and how, data from national groundwater databases are accessible. These include a growing number of countries in Africa for which some groundwater data are available online, including the following examples:

  • Guinea Bissau

An online MWater Portal displays data from a database storing information on nearly 1000 water boreholes, with some groundwater data including borehole depth, static water level and selected water chemistry parameters.

  • Liberia

The online WASH Liberia portal provides access to data from two water point surveys done in 2011 and 2017, with limited groundwater information such as water point depth, whether water is available year-round, how long it is typically dry for, if seasonally dry; and qualitative water quality information.

  • Madagascar

A database developed for the SADC Hydrogeological Mapping project in 2010 is available to view in the SADC GMI Groundwater Information Portal, with some groundwater data, including borehole depth, geology, aquifer type, water level, yield, and selected groundwater chemistry parameters.

  • Malawi

A database developed for the SADC Hydrogeological Mapping project in 2010 is available to view in the SADC GMI Groundwater Information Portal, with some groundwater data, including borehole depth, static water level, yield and how yield was measured, and some water chemistry parameters.

  • Namibia

The Namibian Monitoring Information System (NA-MIS) is an online interactive map viewer showing the locations of groundwater monitoring boreholes across Nambia and summary information on groundwater quality from monitoring boreholes. It also shows groundwater maps of Nambia: of aquifer/groundwater potential; groundwater abstraction; groundwater vulnerability; and recharge. NA-MIS is available online via the SADC Groundwater Management Institute.



  • Rwanda

The Rwanda Water Portal allows access to groundwater level and conductivity monitoring data from a monitoring network of 24 boreholes (in 2021). Some of the groundwater level data is available to view in real time from telemetered boreholes.


  • South Africa

The South Africa Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) has an online National Groundwater Archive, which users can register for to explore groundwater related data.




  • South Sudan

Data from a water point database collected in 2012 is available to view and download online at HDX - South Sudan Waterpoints, including groundwater data such as water point type, depth, static water level, and estimated yield.

  • Zimbabwe

Data from a database storing information on thousands of boreholes is available to view online in the SADC-GIP Groundwater Information Portal, including groundwater data such as borehole depth, geology, aquifer type & potential, static water level, yield & how yield was measured, and selected water quality parameters.

Groundwater Data Sources: Project-based and Private Sector

Many projects and private industries carry out some form of groundwater data collection and/or monitoring. These data are often detailed, but usually focus on small areas and sometimes for short time scales (e.g. weeks to months, or in some cases a few years). These data holdings are rarely integrated with national, government-held databases. It can be difficult for people outside the project or private company to identify what data holdings exist, and if identified, to access the data.

An example of private sector groundwater data is groundwater level monitoring data for a shallow aquifer at a large mine in Kwale country, Kenya, which is collected by the mine operator Base Titanium. This data was shared by the mine operator with the UPGro research project Gro for Good, illustrated by a poster by Mutua et al (2014).


Poster by Mutua et al (2014)

An example of project-based groundwater level monitoring comes from a WaterAid project in Burkina Faso, where WaterAid initiated community-based water resource monitoring. More information is in this case study on community monitoring in Burkina Faso.



Dipping the water level in a hand dug well. Image credit: Djibril Barry / WaterAid (2016)

References

Adelana SMA. 2009. Monitoring groundwater resources in Sub-Saharan Africa: issues and challenges. Groundwater and Climate in Africa: Proceedings of the Kampala Conference, June 2008, IAHS Publ. 334.

IGRAC. 2020. Groundwater monitoring programmes: A global overview of quantitative groundwater monitoring networks

Sterckx A, Nijsten G-J, Gomo M, Lukas E and Kukurić N. 2019. State of Groundwater Data Collection and Data Management in SADC Member States: Final report.



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