Madagascar Groundwater Projects

Africa Groundwater Atlas >> Hydrogeology by country >> Hydrogeology of Madagascar >> Madagascar Groundwater Projects

The following is a list of selected groundwater projects in Madagascar.

  Note: this is not a comprehensive list of groundwater projects: there are many more. If you have information on other significant groundwater projects in Madagascar, please let us know and we will add them to these lists. Contact us on AfricaGWAtlas@bgs.ac.uk

• A Groundwater Resource Observatory for Southwestern Madagascar (GROSOM), led by a consortium of organisations, was begun in 2014 to monitor groundwater levels and meteorology. Two pilot sites were set up: one in 2014 in a carbonate catchment and a second in 2018 in an alluvial setting in a crystalline basement catchment. Each site includes a weather station and groundwater level loggers in 3 to 6 boreholes. Data is being used to support a groundwater early warning system (GEWS) for the southern regions of Madagascar (UNICEF 2019). Results from the two pilot sites indicated falling groundwater levels and saline intrusion in the region of Androy (UNICEF 2019).

• In 1988, a United Nations report (1988) stated that the Hydrogeology Division of the Ministry of Trade and Industry held an archive that included the following documents with groundwater information:

- A catalogue with over 700 reports on hydrogeological works carried out in Madagascar by the Hydrogeology Division

- An inventory of water points and their locations shown on maps at 1:500,000 and 1:100,000

- Unpublished maps of aquifers at a scale of 1:500,000, of the Majunga, Tulear, Far-South and Morondava regions

• In 1968 a UN hydrogeological study project was carried out in the Western Basin between Tulear and Morondava, with electrical resistivity geophysical prospecting and borehole drilling and test pumping. The results of this study are presented in BRGM 1968.

• A number of groundwater exploration projects were carried out in the 1950s, with electrical resistivity geophysical prospecting and borehole drilling and testing.

• The first summary reports on the geology of Madagascar, published in 1929, contained information about groundwater and mineral and thermomineral water.

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