Unlocking the Underground Mysteries

Despite the research and studies done to date, there is still a shortage of information and understanding about how the NSAS works as a system. This is true for both scientists and decision-makers in all four countries. It’s therefore no surprise that public awareness about the aquifer’s importance and about people’s rights to access groundwater is also unclear.

Even less is known about the connections and inter-linkages between water, rising human populations, poor land resource use, land degradation and desertification, ecosystem destruction, species and climate change in the NSAS. What is happening and why? What are the cause and effect relationships? Largely mysterious and unexplored, the need to understand these linkages in an integrated manner is crucial for the future groundwater and natural resource management of such a fragile, arid region.

Improving the information base is thus the key first step, requiring additional research, monitoring and synthesis. This will provide decision-makers and strategic planners with the tools (e.g. Nubian Shared Aquifer Diagnostic Analysis) needed to determine future investigations, develop strategies (e.g. Nubian Strategic Action Programme) and make critical decisions for the optimal management of the NSAS.

Classical hydrogeology alone is no longer sufficient or powerful enough to unlock the mysteries of the NSAS. The scientific approach for assessing and monitoring non-renewable groundwater now needs to be more comprehensive. Groundwater research is an evolving field calling for advanced, reliable techniques for dating and tracing water and assessing water interactions in aquifer systems. The application of modern technology, in particular of isotope hydrology, can provide such information.

Using isotope techniques, samples can be ‘fingerprinted’ to understand mix, flow, origin and recharge processes. Isotope science can also provide early warning signals for impending threats. Some of the key scientific questions to be assessed by the ‘Nubian Project’ in the future include:

• How does the aquifer work? (e.g. How is water distributed? How much natural recharge takes place, if any?)
• How do human actions impact the NSAS? (e.g. bad land-use practices, climate change, loss of springs from poor well locations)
• How are specific habitats and species impacted?
• How much water can be abstracted cost-effectively?
• Where and how deep should the wells be dug?
• Can NSAS reserves be ‘artificially recharged’?