Africa Groundwater Atlas

The Africa Groundwater Atlas is being developed as part of the UPGro programme. It builds on work undertaken to develop quantitative maps of groundwater for Africa1 based on published and unpublished (‘grey’) literature and maps; and to make available archived groundwater reports for the SADC region.

The Atlas has two main aims:

1. to make existing information and studies easily accessible through an online archive; and
2. to provide a systematic summary of groundwater resources for each African
   country, compiled in collaboration with country hydrogeologists.

The Africa Groundwater Literature Archive is a searchable database of bibliographic references of groundwater literature for Africa (currently with approximately 6000 entries), including both unpublished reports (often unavailable by other means) and published journal articles. Where possible, full text downloads of documents, or direct links to documents held elsewhere, will be made available. In time the Archive will also incorporate
metadata from long term (>10 year) groundwater datasets, where these can be identified and compiled.

The Africa Groundwater Atlas will include profiles for each country, each comprising several pages written with MediaWiki software, using the best available and most up‐to‐date information, including sections on geology, aquifer properties, recharge, groundwater quality, and groundwater management.

Flexible online formats will enable both the Atlas and Literature Archive to be quickly updated and to grow organically as more information becomes available. However, to maximise accessibility where internet is poor, the first edition of the Atlas will be supported by a hard copy version.