Beneath Africa, Survey Finds 'Huge' Water Reserves

gambit3 writes with this news, carried by the BBC: "Scientists say the notoriously dry continent of Africa is sitting on a vast reservoir of groundwater. They argue that the total volume of water in aquifers underground is 100 times the amount found on the surface. Across Africa more than 300 million people are said not to have access to safe drinking water. Freshwater rivers and lakes are subject to seasonal floods and droughts that can limit their availability for people and for agriculture. At present only 5% of arable land is irrigated."

Oh no

[andrew3]

More resources means people will think they can make more people. Which, of course, will be worse in the long run since underground water never lasts forever, and it will be a larger population to starve.

What Africa needs is education [arachnoid.com], not more water to be exported to other countries.

It is also a FINITE supply.

[WolphFang]

It is also a FINITE supply.... not a true fix for water shortage problem long-term...

So how long will it last?

[SuricouRaven]

I don't care how much good that water might do today: I want to know how long it'll last if a billion people start sucking it up. Aquifers replenish, but only very slowly. Even the scientists behind the research are stressing that industrial-scale drilling will exaust the supply eventually.

Re:Oh no

[gweihir]

Indeed. As long as the people there do not understand what their problems are, they will not get out of their current situation. Education is the only way to achieve that. "Gifts" from the west only result in laziness, which is one primary enemy of education. Most people are only willing to learn if there is no alternative. Sad but true.

Don't do what we did

[girlintraining]

Although I'm sure many will say this is inhumane, I suggest that this survey quietly disappear. Many of the United States' agricultural land is in danger of turning to dust due to several factors. Part of it is the poor use of land; Overuse of pesticides, chemical fertilizer, genetically engineered crops (the crops are not the problem, the business practices of companies like Monsanto are), and the loss of top soil due to erosion are just some of the problems. We have several states that are largely desert right now (the "dust bowl" was a ecological disaster caused by irresponsible farming practices). However, the other part of it is due to lack of access to fresh water. People are living in places that have tapped out their underwater reserves; Especially those in the southeastern United States. Several municipalities are embroiled in fierce legal battled over neighboring cities (and even states!) refusal to share their water. This is a situation that will only get worse over time; Already there is talk about southern states passing legislation or taking overt and aggressive action to divert water from the Great Lakes to areas of the south that soon will be uninhabitable without water relief -- others of course argue that the areas should never have been inhabited in the first place.

If the countries of Africa tap that resource, on one hand they will experience a sudden burst of economic activity and agricultural reform; and with it a corresponding explosion in population. However, there is already too much industrialization of the planet as it is, and with global warming going unaddressed due to a lack of cooperation by sovereign powers, an untempered entry into industry by so many new countries could cause a global ecological disaster that could leave most of the tropical regions of the planet devastated and unfarmable. If an industrialized country with access to state of the art technology, extensive scientific understanding, and sufficient natural resources, cannot solve these problems... I shudder to think what could happen if an entire continent did a history repeat.

Re:Oh no

[zblack_eagle]

"Gifts" from the west only result in laziness

Also known economic circumstances as dumping [wikipedia.org]. The local costs of production can't compete with 'free', and so local production is stymied by what is effectively first world governments subsidising domestic production.

And we get all indignant when China does things for "cheap".

Re:So how long will it last?

[Nursie]

There's no inherent reason that industrial-scale drilling has to be allowed to exhaust the supply

Pffft. Silly rabbit. The inherent reason is humans. Someone with an interest in industrial scale wasting of water will pay the right people just enough to get them out of the way, and start depleting it as fast as they can, for as much or as little profit as they can make from it.

Oh yes

[dutchwhizzman]

People bread like rabbits once there is enough food and water to go around. They do anyway, but the infant mortality rate is high and migration to barren areas is very limited. Once there's food, water and safety, large groups of people migrate and breed. In just one or two generations, the country will be densely populated and there will once again be a shortage of resources.

Re:It is also a FINITE supply.

[Intropy]

Exactly. When you pump water out of the ground it's gone forever. It gets consumed, evaporates, and then it never rains again.

Re:Oh yes

[Barsteward]

I think the opposite is true. Infant mortality is high in these areas so they have more children in the hope some survive. When there is food, medicine, better sanitation etc, they breed less because there is less chance of the infants dying.

Re:So how long will it last?

[Grayhand]

The point though is legitimate because the population has exploded with most people living not much different than they did a hundred years ago. Everyone shares this naive belief that all we need to do is feed the hungry people. Feeding them without education gives you two hungry people instead of one. Every documentary I've ever seen showing starving single mothers in Africa they ask how many kids they have and it turns out they are trying to raise 6 or 8 kids on $2 or less a day. It's impossible so most starve. The only sure cure for out of control fertility rates is education and improved lifestyles. Where are the lowest fertility rates in the world? Japan, the US and most of Europe where they have strong economies. The exception being religious groups that insist the members have as many kids as possible. Conditions weren't that different in this country a 100+ years ago except we had the resources to feed them. Send them drills and water pumps as well as condoms and tell the Pope to go fuck himself since they aren't willing to help feed the people his and the church's policies help create. If we've been exceeding the Earth's resources since the early 80s every one born since then will eventually have to find some place else to live. It's not opinion if the numbers are right it's a fact. The only real solution in the long run is that there are fewer people using the resources. If we don't fix the problem nature will do it herself. Fewer kids born or mass starvation, which is crueler?

No they don't

[Sycraft-fu]

You see this bullshit all the time from people who never took more than BIO 100 and presume that humans work like bacteria. Turns out, they don't. The proof of that is first world nations. They all have at most low population growth, and many have neutral or negative population growth. The "human bacteria" theory says they should be the prime places for a massive booming population. There's abundance in everything and IMR is low so population should explode... But it doesn't.

Turns out when you solve the basic needs, when people have more than a subsistence living, when they don't have to worry about a bunch of their offspring dying, they stop having so many kids.

The way to control population is not to try and starve people of resources. You might notice that is the situation now and yet there's high birth rate. The way to control is to get people better lives. Sufficient food, clean water, medical care, shelter, etc and then the population growth is tamed.

This isn't a "Well we hope humans work like this," theory, it is how things HAVE worked. It is the reason there was no massive boom and crash in the US, Europe, Japan, and so on. Population growth has slowed, leveled off, or even inverted in all the places that have the most abundant resources.

The strategy of "Just let the brown people die," is not only extremely callous, it is also counter productive to getting a stable population level.

Actually underground reservoirs can be "finite"

[perpenso]

Exactly. When you pump water out of the ground it's gone forever.

Underground reservoirs are not necessarily refilled by the next rain. Read up on such reservoirs found in North America. They were filled over many thousands of years and significantly drained by agriculture related drilling and pumping in decades. Every year agriculture has to drill deeper and deeper to find water.

It gets consumed, evaporates, and then it never rains again.

Of course it rains, the problem is that it does not necessarily rain where the water was harvested. Harvesting deep water reservoirs does not somehow change the fact that a region is a desert or arid region with little rainfall.

Lost in corruption

[acidradio]

All of this water is great! But with all of the corrupt governments throughout Africa who will ever get to benefit from it?

I've always felt that Africa is the richest continent. It's chock-full of minerals, oil, diamonds, arable land (some land better than other land but with the right techniques just about anything is possible)... The climate is warm to hot throughout much of the continent facilitating growing. Its people? If you go to the right places hard-working, skilled and eager to work. But its corruption is widespread. Without targeting that (much easier said than done) this water will either stay in the ground or will go to benefit some dictator or other "politician".

Re:Oh yes

[Anonymous Coward]

People bread like rabbits once there is enough food and water to go around.

Wrong. There is an over-abundance of food and water throughout the western world and other wealthly nations and population, not counting immigration, is either at replacement or declining [huffingtonpost.com]. Malthus was simply wrong. Please stop promulgating your mutual ignorance.

Re:Oh no

[sqrt(2)]

Africa has more than enough arable land and resources to feed itself solely with food produced from the continent. Their problems are political, and socioeconomic.

I don't have an answer to fix the problem, and I don't know enough about the situation and the history to give a very insightful explanation as to how it came about but it seems that the African people cannot govern themselves effectively. This goes back even to before Europeans arrived. They were subsistence farmers and hunter/gathers organized in tribal groups or regional empires that fought with their neighboring tribes when the Europeans came and that's mostly what they are still today. The only difference is that we provided them with terrible new weapons to kill each other much more effectively, and we established an amoral economic basis by which the most ruthless among them could gain much wealth and power by exploiting their kinsmen through cooperation with resource extracting imperialists.

I don't see a way out of this nightmare for them. Africa will remain mired in all of the worst aspects of humanity for the foreseeable future. Everything anyone does to try and help just addresses the symptoms, not the systemic problems which the West seems ill-equipped even to identify, much less remedy.

Re:No they don't

[turing_m]

You see this bullshit all the time from people who never took more than BIO 100 and presume that humans work like bacteria. Turns out, they don't. The proof of that is first world nations. They all have at most low population growth, and many have neutral or negative population growth. The "human bacteria" theory says they should be the prime places for a massive booming population. There's abundance in everything and IMR is low so population should explode... But it doesn't.

I'd be a bit more circumspect about my ability to judge the long term growth rates of humans just two generations after the introduction of the contraceptive pill and Roe vs Wade. It's like the equivalent of spraying some dilute poison in the petri dish that most but not every bacterium is affected by and thinking that the long term growth rates can be predicted by the growth rates of that bacteria in a few hours.

Re:No they don't

[siddesu]

You have it the wrong way around. The argument isn't biological in nature, it deals with economics. People are not bacteria in a petri dish. They can think about the future and plan according to the means that are available to them. Children are the only investment available to many peoples in the poorest parts in the world, since they receive little care, but tend to take care of their parents. In the West, children bear a huge opportunity cost, as they need to be taken care of, but don't contribute directly to the well-being of their parents as much as the offspring in poorer nation.

This is why there is a lot more demand for contraceptives and abortions in the West, and that is why methods for birth control were developed in the first place.

Re:Oh no

[tsa]

Most people in Africa have enough to eat. Africa is an enormous continent with many different landscapes and people. What Africa needs is leaders who actually care for their people, so they can exploit the land better and be educated.

Re:Oh no

[gweihir]

Africa needs infrastructure built and maintained by locals. You can still find the ruins of plenty of bridges, roads, etc. built by the British, the French, etc. People only value infrastructure if they had to bleed themselves to build it.

Re:So how long will it last?

[DNS-and-BIND]

I love it. Some good news for Africa at last, and all you can think of is "they need fewer people". First world good, Africa bad. Ever consider the implied racism in this thinking?

Re:Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, just like Detroit or Haiti or... ah! never mind!

Re:Oh no

[Chrisq]

Africa needs infrastructure built and maintained by locals. You can still find the ruins of plenty of bridges, roads, etc. built by the British, the French, etc. People only value infrastructure if they had to bleed themselves to build it.

Not necessarily true. I value a lot of roads that were built before I was born. I think that what is important is the expectation that people's work and taxes will have to maintain it. I could extend that to say that if someone built a road out of charity to a remote region this could be good for the locals, and if the expectation was that the new trade paid for the upkeep it would increase the economy.

Re:Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Your last paragraph is a racist statement complaining about racism ... irony? contradiction? stupidity?

Re:Oh no

[AmiMoJo]

Wow, and you are accusing /them/ of being racist.

My girlfriend is Chinese. Never been to the west, doesn't speak English, in every way a normal Chinese person. She and none of the other Chinese people I know think that way.

I would also point out that Western companies do the same thing when it profits them. Capitalism is amoral.

Re:Oh no

[AmberBlackCat]

At this point, you guys are just circle-jerking. One bashes Africa and gets a +5, then another replies and bashes Africa getting a +5 repeatedly. I personally think Africa's problem has been nations repeatedly coming in with devastating weapons and laying claim to its resources. And when the people try to take it back they are faced with guns. And the people who took their resources will justify this by identifying one African as the representative of them all who, has agreed to sign everything over even though nobody else accepts this person as their leader. Kind of like when a law gets passed in the United States that nobody wants.

Re:Oh no

[AmberBlackCat]

Most people in Africa have enough to eat. Africa is an enormous continent with many different landscapes and people. What Africa needs is leaders who actually care for their people, so they can exploit the land better and be educated.

It's not that Africans can't pick the right leaders. It's that the people draining African resources will kill any African who tries to take the place of the leaders they've chosen for Africa.

Re:Infrastructure

[hoboroadie]

They will have to build it themselves if it doesn't lead directly from the mine to the container-port.

Re:Great!!

[TheRaven64]

We gave up on that game when we discovered that we didn't actually need lots of peasants. Now we just install corrupt governments and bribe them to let us take all of the natural resources. It's much cheaper and doesn't leave us with embarrassing colonies that we need to maintain.

Re:Oh no

[canadian_right]

Most of Africa's current problems are due to very bad government. When your country is run by an immoral, thieving, crazy, gangster, the general population is unlikely to succeed. It is time to stop blaming the very real ills of colonization on the today's issues. There are successful nations in Africa and they all have competent to very good governments,and rule of law.

Re:Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

did the native americans become prosperous ? or the aborigines ?

Re:Oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

You ignorant idiot, America's native population was eliminated by those devastating weapons. 20th century world politics prevented Western nations from doing the same with Africa - imagine if events followed your analogy and Africa was settled predominantly by white Caucasian / Anglo-Saxon populations. Then Africa would be a land of whites with Mormons in the African Bible Belt.

How can you not think your own analogy through?

I get it - Americans like you have just forgotten the massacred native populace. Completely. It's a burden of huge guilt that wont go away from your nation easily.

Re:Oh no

[JosephTX]

Bullshit. The reason the roads built by European countries grew dilapidated was because they were useless for the locals' travel and commerce. When European powers colonized Africa, they just build roads leading straight from villages to port towns, paying more for goods than the locals could and consequently pretty much killing all trade between villages. The roads they built were generally in tropical areas where the cement couldn't dry before getting doused in rain, and the undergrowth constantly damaged what the rain hadn't. So even if the roads that Europeans built were useful in any way for the Africans themselves, they still wouldn't have lasted until the present day.

China's intentions are probably no better, for that matter.