Transboundary aquifers

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Africa Groundwater Atlas >> Resource pages >> Transboundary Aquifers

  Please cite page as: Africa Groundwater Atlas. 2019. Transboundary Aquifers. British Geological Survey. Accessed [date you accessed the information]. Weblink.
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Transboundary Aquifers

Transboundary aquifers (TBAs) are aquifers that underlie more than one country or political region. Management of TBA resources is therefore dependent on cooperation between countries and it is important that they are well understood to ensure they are exploited in a sustainable way.

IGRAC

As a United Nations Centre, the International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre (IGRAC) is taking a global lead on assessing and providing information on transboundary aquifers. There are many initiatives looking at various aspects of transboundary groundwater, including global baseline assessments and more detailed regional or aquifer assessments. Further information can be found on the Transboundary Groundwaters section of IGRAC's website.

As part of their work on transboundary aquifers, IGRAC have led the production and publication of a map of Transboundary Aquifers of the World.


Selected Transboundary Aquifer projects

Conjunctive Water Management for Food Security and Resilience

This overall project is a knowledge sharing platform by IWMI, which seeks to capture and disseminate highlights of the increasing knowledge base emerging from work on transboundary river-aquifer systems in the SADC region. Most focus is on three aquifer systems:

  • The ShireConWat project (Conjunctive Water Resources Management in the Shire River - Aquifer System). The Shire Aquifer and River Basin System is shared between Malawi and Mozambique. This was run by SADC-GMI as the client and IWMI as the consultant. Read a summary of the project - at this link you can also access draft versions of these project outputs: a transboundary diagnostic (TDA) to address the issue of system and resource assessment, and a strategic action plan (SAP) to develop the project's vision and prioritise actions to achieve it.


Niger Basin: Support in Groundwater Management to the Niger Basin Authority

This project, which finishes in 2022, is operated by BGR as part of the Integrated Water Resources Management ABN program of the German Development Cooperation, in partnership with the Niger Basin Authority. The project aims to implement measures for groundwater protection and sustainable use of groundwater in the Niger Basin Authority's IWRM (integrated water resources management) programme. Project activities include: The project activities include:

  • Collection and assessment of groundwater data and maps in the Niger basin to develop a groundwater database and form the basis for a hydrogeological map of the basin
  • Identification of transboundary regions with conflict-ridden groundwater problems
  • Support for measures to improve groundwater management in selected areas
  • Capacity building at all levels (education, training programs, know-how-transfer)

More information, and the download of project reports, maps and other outputs, is on the project website.

Selected other publications

Scheumann W and Herrfahrdt-Pähle E (Eds.) 2008. Conceptualizing cooperation on Africa’s transboundary groundwater resources. German Development Institute (DIE), Bonn.

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