afri
alliance
social
innovation
Monitoringgroundwater quantity
toensure its sustainable use
and to avoidwater conflicts
The overall objective of the AfriAlliance Social Inno-
vation Factsheets (SIF)
is to highlight innovation oppor-
tunities that scientists, NGOs, managers and SMEs can
act upon, in order to foster short-term improvements in
the preparedness of African stakeholders for water and
climate change challenges.
Over the duration of AfriAlliance (2016-2021), four
setsof SIFswill bedelivered.
Each setwill cover onemain
theme and explore it across five Social Innovation Fact-
sheets.Monitoring is themain theme of this first series of
SIFs, covering the following five sub-themes:
Monitoring«drinkingwater »quality for improved
health inAfrica.
Monitoring of water availability in terms of quality
and quantity for food security.
Monitoring climate for early warning systems to
prepare for extremeweather events.
Monitoringgroundwater quantity toensuresustai-
nable use and avoidwater conflicts (thisSIF).
Monitoringwaterpollutionby industriesandurban
areas to protect human health and ecosystems.
As detailed below,
social innovation combines four
dimensions: technological, governance, capacity develop-
ment and business roadmap. Each is described in a spe-
cific section of this thematicSocial Innovation Factsheet.
DESCRIPTION
Groundwater is a resource to be protected due to its high but fragile resi-
lience to climate change,
as it responds much more slowly to meteorological
conditions than surface water and, as such, provides a natural buffer against
climate variability, including drought [a]. On the institutional side, GRAPHIC
initiative [b] highlighted the need for
more explicit discussion regarding
groundwater since strategic manage-
ment for climate resilient groundwater
resources is the foundation for long-
term adaptation and mitigation plans
fordevelopment andpoverty reduction.
Groundwater is an important re-
source inAfrica
that is unevenly distri-
buted. In2012, scientists [c] estimated
that African groundwater reserves are
about 0,66million km
3
. Not all of this groundwater storage is available for abs-
traction, but the estimated volume is more than 100 times that of the annual
renewable surfacewater resources inAfrica.
Since theearly19thcentury,
manycountries inEuropeand inAfricahavedeve-
lopedwatermanagement systemmainly focusingonsurfacewater.Progressively,
the key role of groundwater as a support for different water uses in the context
of climate change has been taken into acount. For example, in times of serious
drought boreholes are generally drilled. As scientists predict climate with hotter
and drier weather and more intense but less frequent rainfall events and consi-
dering how important groundwater is to reduce poverty and support economic
growthnotably in rural area,plans for integratedsustainablemanagementofwater
resources (surface and groundwater) are necessary. These plans need data on
the availability of the resource and on the recharge capacity of aquifers through
monitoringschemesat national, regional and local levels.
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SOCIAL INNOVATION
• InAfriAlliance, social innovationmeans tackling
societal, water-related challenges arising from
ClimateChange by combining the technological &
non-technological dimensions of innovation.
• Social innovation refers to those processes and
outcomes focussedon addressing societal goals,
unsatisfied collective needs or societal – as op-
posed tomere economic – returns. It is particularly
salient in the context of the complex and cross-cut-
ting challenges that need to be addressed in the
field of water andClimateChange – andwhichwill
not bemet by relying onmarket signals alone.
• Social innovation consists of new combinations
(or hybrids of existing and new) products, pro-
cesses and services. In order to succeed, social
innovation needs topay attention to technological
aswell as non-technological dimensions :
1) tech-
nology, 2) capacity development, 3) governance
structures and 4) business roadmap.
As such,
these four dimensions of the social innovation
process cut across organisational, sectoral and
disciplinary boundaries and imply new patterns of
stakeholder involvement and learning.
• The success of social innovation is reliant on the
accountability of diverse stakeholders and across
all government levels.
Social
Innovation
Factsheet
#1
•
MONITORING
SOCIETALCHALLENGES
INAFRICADUE TOCLIMATCHANGE
•Given themanifesta-
tionsof ClimateChange
and theconstraintsof
ecosystemsaswell as
socio-economicsystems,
thesocietal challenges in
Africaare to:
–ensure foodsecurity,
water securityandenergy
securityand thebalance
among them (short term),
– transform intoa low
carbon, resilient and
sustainablesociety (long
term).
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