Tracking seismic data could help in finding groundwater in Africa, where water scarcity affects two-thirds of the population.
In Tanzania, a geological exploration for water seemed doomed to fail until Fridtjov Ruden, one of the hydrogeologists on the project, had an unconventional idea. Instead of blindly drilling or evaluating only the surface layer of the earth, he turned to the wealth of seismic data from the oil industry to pinpoint where freshwater could be stored underground.
What he discovered was almost too good to be true: after months of unsuccessful drilling, the seismic information, a kind of X-ray of the earth, revealed that freshwater was right there, just a little deeper than he had been searching.
Encouraged by the finding, Ruden pushed his team to drill three new wells, each 600 meters deep. This time, water gushed out.
“Everyone was excited because it was the discovery of an aquifer that no one knew existed,” says Elizabeth Quiroga Jordan, a petroleum engineer at Ruden AS, the company that Ruden founded with his daughter Helene Ree four years later.
It turned out that the aquifer was vast enough to supply water to two million people for over a century. This crucial discovery illustrates a solution that could change the rules of the game and drastically reduce the cost of solving Africa’s most atrocious problem: the lack of clean water.
### Harnessing Oil Data to Find Water in Africa
The advantage of leveraging existing data from oil companies to map deep aquifers and address the water crisis in Africa is evident. Cost and time reduction would be a huge benefit for water resource exploration projects, especially considering that this industry lacks the resources of oil and gas.
Helene Ree Ruden left her career in the media sector to help her father strengthen the commercial aspect of their company. She explains that their goal is to “drag oil companies into this water world where people are still walking around with sticks trying to find water.”
“When they have drilled up to 5,000 meters and there is no oil, they just say it’s a dry well, even if it’s full of freshwater,” she adds. However, accessing this data treasure is not an easy task. Ruden’s team quickly realized this after obtaining a tender from the Norwegian Government to search for water in Somalia, a region with geological characteristics similar to Tanzania.
“What they didn’t know in Norway is that executing this project requires oil information, and oil data is in the hands of the Ministry of Oil,” explains Quiroga Jordan.
Negotiations to obtain this data required a carefully orchestrated charm offensive to “make the Minister of Oil understand that we were not looking for oil.” In the end, it took three years to share the data.
### Groundwater Pumping: A Real Solution for Africa?
As climate change, rapid population growth, and inadequate water management systems conspire to make freshwater increasingly scarce in the future, pumping groundwater from wells may no longer be a luxury.
In the 2010s, scientists discovered abundant underground aquifers spanning the water-scarce continent, sparking hopes about this water source. However, experts warn that groundwater alone would not be the solution.
### Challenges in Aquifer Management
Gaathier Mahed, a professor at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa and an expert in groundwater and aquifers, has pointed out that several factors determine how aquifers can help meet communities’ needs. These include the aquifer’s proximity to demand areas, water quality, and infrastructure availability.
Another challenge is that, even when these elements align, there is a risk of mismanagement or overpumping, which could endanger these vital water reserves.
Faced with recurrent droughts, the need for more lasting and systemic solutions is undeniable. “You can’t keep sending humanitarian aid for situations that you know will keep happening every year when you know there are longer-term solutions to fix it,” argues Elizabeth Quiroga Jordan.
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