Water may offer the only chance

What goes through your mind spontaneously when you think of groundwater – what does it mean to both of you? A tempting growth opportunity or endangered protective reservoir?

Caroline Milow: For me it is an endangered reserve. One that needs to be protected. And I’m not only referring to its quantity, but also its quality.

Ramon Brentführer: For me, it is a reservoir of water resources that must be handled carefully. It gives us the opportunity to make water available in a protected way over a longer period. In times of excess precipitation, the water can be stored underground and then used in times of drought. In other words, it would allow us to buffer dry periods.

Ms Milow, if you feel that groundwater is already endangered – what is the reason for that? In your opinion, does groundwater simply have a bad lobby? After all, it can be easily extracted.

Caroline Milow: Let’s look at it from the Central Asian perspective – I work on water management there. Relatively little is known about groundwater there. Many monitoring wells no longer exist, and the use of groundwater in agriculture is often structured like this: if there is a rich farmer who can afford a borehole and the big Chinese pumps, he just starts drilling. He doesn’t ask too many questions and simply sucks the water out. But what people don’t realise is that it takes a long time for groundwater to accumulate. I recently read that the German groundwater that we are currently using for drinking water is a hundred years old – and the situation in Central Asia is similar. That’s why you shouldn’t just pump it out. It’s extremely important to consider when, how, where and whether it really makes sense. In Central Asia, groundwater is also urgently needed for drinking water supply. Obviously, that should take priority. For agriculture, we should also try to explore other ways and see to what extent recycled water is used for irrigation.

Ramon Brentführer: Yes, drinking water must always take priority. However, your assessment of the age of water is not entirely correct: Groundwater can also be a few months old – for example, riverbank filtrate. That is relatively young water. But there is also very old water. These are mostly resources that lie at depths of several hundred metres to 1,000 metres and barely regenerate, if at all. But in shallow aquifers it does. Considering the possibility of regeneration, it is like sustainability in forestry: just because forests are being cut down and overused doesn’t mean that we can’t use any more wood at all. The better way to look at it is that we have to make sure we only take as much out of the forests as can grow back again. We need to do the same with groundwater.

Caroline Milow: There is a big difference between the regions of the world. In Central Asia, groundwater forms slowly. The region is one of the most water-stressed areas on earth. It rains much less because climate change is hitting the area hard. If things continue as they are, we will have up to six degrees of warming in Central Asia by the end of the century. And then, of course, it’s the end of the line in terms of groundwater regeneration. Therefore, in 2023, we will start a water project commissioned by the BMZ (Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) in all five Central Asian countries for regional, climate-sensitive water resource management. One component is to map and examine the status of groundwater.

The regions may be different, but the people usually are not. How can you ensure that nobody abuses the system, that a rich farmer doesn’t just come and take water uncontrolled? Do you have confidence that something like that could be managed properly?

Ramon Brentführer: Well, in humid regions we have so far had less problems with groundwater quantity than with quality. In Germany, for example, we have a problem with water quality, especially in districts with extremely extensive pig farming. There is a noticeable amount of nitrate in the groundwater. Similarly, we have a governance issue in areas where water is a limited resource. That’s why we have to differentiate between the regions.

From the Middle East and North Africa to Central Asia, Spain and the Midwest of the USA, every region faces major governance issues to manage groundwater resources sensibly.

Even industrialised countries are struggling with it. You must have strong institutions and good water laws and implement them.

What is the situation in the sub-Saharan region?

Ramon Brentführer: The big difference to all the other regions is that we often don’t have a resource problem in the sub-Saharan region. There is an access problem. First of all, we don’t know enough about where the resource is available.

Generally there is no technology available in that area or insufficient on-site capacity to ensure drilling and thus access to water.

Can the potential be quantified?

Ramon Brentführer: In sub-Saharan Africa, there is no country that uses more than 25 per cent of renewable water resources so far. In many countries, it is not even ten per cent. That is an insane potential in a region where 50 per cent of the population in rural areas does not have access to safe water supply and where only five per cent of all agricultural land is irrigated.

Caroline Milow: This is a big difference to Central Asia, where groundwater is already overused. Currently, 85 per cent more groundwater is taken out of the ground than should be.

Ms Milow, do you see an opportunity for sub-Saharan Africa to deal more intensively with groundwater management?

Caroline Milow: I have less to say about this region, as I have been in Central Asia for ten years. However, I am generally on the cautious side when it comes to natural resources – especially because there is a governance problem in Central Asia. People like to look for quick solutions to boost the economy. And then practically all means are justified so that the ruling class has success stories. In water management, an important stakeholder takes priority over the environment.

Currently, it is still unknown exactly what groundwater resources there are in the African regions. So, the first step would be to explore them?

Ramon Brentführer: No, we know roughly what kind of groundwater resources exist. They also differ from those in many other regions. In sub-Saharan Africa, there are often shallow aquifers.

So it’s often a matter of simply making water available with hand pumps or with wells that are a few metres deep. This way, people can irrigate their own gardens and smallholders can water their fields.

This is also the difference to Central Asia and the Aral Sea, where we have very industrialised agriculture. The Horn of Africa is experiencing famines right now. This area desperately needs resilient water management to buffer the drought period.

How technically challenging would that be?

Ramon Brentführer: From a construction point of view, it’s not that bad. You have to pay attention to the water quality. In the 1980s, the British made shallow aquifers in Bangladesh available via hand pumps, which had negative consequences for the health of the population. But the technology is there. The better question is: How do we get the right equipment and capacities to the right location? Also, how do we train the local people to construct the wells and then establish a sustainable agricultural system? None of this is rocket science. The challenge lies more in the interaction of the agricultural sector with the water sector. That probably varies for every country. Moreover, financing is a key factor in enabling the rural population to drill wells at all.

There are often hardly any options for smallholders to get loans to build wells.

Caroline Milow: First, we need to check whether it is worthwhile to tap these reserves at all. If it would only support smallholders for a few years, it raises the question: Isn’t it then more reasonable to accept that certain areas of land are no longer able to sustain agriculture precisely because of climate change?

Ramon Brentführer: Yes, this can be explored via satellites and global data. We know approximately where the precipitation will fall. We can then use this information to estimate how the groundwater is regenerated. For example, there is certain potential in East Africa and in the southern Sahel.

Ms Milow, as a member of the ‘Vorsicht beim Grundwassermanagement’ (Prudent Groundwater Management) Team, what are your red flags?

Caroline Milow: I advocate first examining which agricultural products make sense where. We should also examine whether we can go back to old endemic varieties, like millet and other crops that need less water. I think that aid to developing countries and European influenced agriculture have made many mistakes with wheat. We have to realign the whole system. It is not only about water management, but also about land management. For Central Asia, I can say that this cross-sectoral interaction and these integrated approaches are very difficult to implement in the five Central Asian republics. And I can imagine that it is not easy in African regions either. It makes little sense to work on the water management sector from a silo perspective.

Mr Brentführer, how do you get that right? In your opinion, what should a conceptual framework for the management and protection of groundwater resources look like?

Ramon Brentführer: First of all, water must be integrated into the development planning of the countries. The water sector really needs to collaborate with the other sectors. Water is basically a service sector for many development goals, with food security being one of several. Safeguard mechanisms can then also be built in, because agriculture basically has an interest in long-term farming.

If several African countries have to collaborate with each other in groundwater management, could that create new problems?

Ramon Brentführer: Of course, tensions can arise, as can be seen with the Nile, for example. Otherwise, we can handle it. In southern Africa, for example, there is little water, but I don’t know of any tensions between the countries. Things are going quite well. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) manages to balance the interests of the countries. That is certainly a big contrast to North Africa. There is also little water in the regions around Lake Chad and the Niger Basin; but warlike conflicts or political tensions over water as a resource are not really a problem.

Caroline Milow: There are even scientific studies according to which water contributes positively to collaboration. There are fewer examples of wars over water than positive examples of collaboration. Generally, water is actually more of a peace-building element.

Ramon Brentführer: People used to think that the wars of the future would be fought over water. So far, this has not proven to be true. Even between Egypt and Ethiopia, which so far have the greatest tensions over water resources, there have been no wars.

To what extent are rural development and water management related?

Ramon Brentführer: In sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture is probably the only option for many rural regions to develop. Therefore, it is directly linked to water. Water is perhaps the only chance for many regions to undergo some socio-economic development.

Caroline Milow: It is the same in Central Asia. Water management is the key to keeping people in rural areas. For example, agriculture also uses water efficiently so that there is enough water for other sectors to create jobs.

Without water, nothing works in rural development.

Ramon Brentführer: We should use the resources and potential we have to offer people in Africa prospects, to create resilience, and to cope with major droughts and other crises. There is a lot of potential in it. Crises like the one in the Horn of Africa are happening now. We have to carefully consider the consequences and risks, but also act quickly. I hope that we are in a position to make a contribution with German development cooperation efforts as well.

Caroline Milow: For me, the most important thing is to build a bridge between technical and scientific know-how and the organisers. Unfortunately, I often see two groups talking past each other. The scientific community doesn’t manage to express itself in a way that is understandable to the political decision-makers. But I also noticed that the political decision-makers sometimes don’t want to understand the science because they are looking for quick solutions. I feel that we should avoid quick solutions. Instead, we should ask all stakeholders and partners to work together and look for long-term solutions in development cooperation. The quickest solution is usually the worst solution. Sometimes it takes time for reforms. Therefore, it’s better to take an extra year to consider all aspects. Then you end up with something sustainable, not a quick fix that backfires.