It seems that poverty and drought are synonymous with Africa in everyone's cognition, and it is true. Due to climate change and plate movement, the northern part of Africa has changed from the former vast forests to the Sahara Desert; desert climate also affects Africa. Inland, more than 10 African countries receive less than 22 mm of annual precipitation, and drought has become the norm here.

But the absence of water on the surface does not mean that there is no water underground. In fact, the groundwater reserves in Africa are 100 times that of the surface ! So the question is, why do Africans who are short of water do not dig wells down, but instead look for water everywhere?

Water shortages in most African countries

Affected by the geographical environment, Africa is a country with an extremely uneven distribution of precipitation. During the dry season, there is no drop of water here, and during the rainy season, excessive precipitation may lead to catastrophic floods.

Some countries happen to be in the precipitation area of ​​Africa, where people worry about disasters such as mudslides caused by floods every year; but there are also some countries that are in arid areas all year round, where there is no shadow of water all year round.

In fact, the vast majority of African countries are in arid regions, and only a few countries can receive water recharge from precipitation. And those countries without precipitation can only go out to collect water.

Take Zimbabwe as an example, local people need to go out for three hours to get back water from places with water resources. Sometimes people have to go out early, otherwise it will be dark when they come back.

We can also see related scenes in some documentaries about Africa, most African women will set off early to go to long distances to fetch water . But the water taken back is not clear, the good water will be covered with a layer of dust, and the bad water will be a bucket of sewage.

But local people need to live on these water resources, they will use their own simple water purification device to remove impurities in the water, and then save it for daily drinking.

In the cultures of most African countries, especially those that lack water, fetching water is one of the responsibilities that women must follow, while men are responsible for farming or earning money to support their families.

You can think about how hard life would be if all the time of day’s work was spent on fetching water? Don't Africans want to change themselves and move their families to areas with water?

In fact, Africans did, but at a heavy price.

In traditional African culture, most people do not leave their hometown easily. This is the foundation of their life. If they have a wife, children, and children, leaving means losing everything.

In fact, the place where they lived was green in previous years, but more and more people came, and the use of water resources became more and more frequent. Eventually, there was no water available in the local area. They had to go to further places to collect water.

If the family relocates to other places, how can we ensure that the current ending will not occur?

Due to the limited water resources, the local people are actually not friendly to outsiders, especially those who plan to stay permanently. It is not an exaggeration to say that they are enemies. Most of the villages in Africa last for several generations and have a history of a hundred years. It is difficult for outsiders to integrate into them in a short period of time.

It seems unrealistic to dig a well

Since it is unrealistic to relocate the whole family, don't Africans know how to dig wells?

According to relevant data, the groundwater reserves in Africa are 100 times that of the surface. Even in arid regions such as the Sahara Desert, the total area of ​​underground aquifers exceeds 2 million square kilometers. More than 375,000 cubic kilometers of fresh water.

what is this concept?

The total freshwater storage capacity of the Great Lakes in North America is only 22,560 cubic meters, and the Sahara Desert alone is 17 times the total of the Great Lakes.

Although the rest of Africa is not as rich in groundwater resources as the Sahara Desert, the overall underground water storage is still considerable; if so, why don't Africans try to dig wells? When the well is opened, won't there be water to drink?

In fact, the governments of African countries have attached great importance to the drilling of wells over the years, and some international non-governmental organizations have also given great help to the local area.

In some developed African regions, the government exploits groundwater very frequently, and 70% of the water in some regions comes from underground aquifers.

However, it is precisely because of the dependence on the groundwater layer that the local water layer has dropped by nearly 25 meters in the past 20 years. Under this situation, it is not only much more difficult to exploit water resources, but also the water quality is relatively low . Even if Africa is indeed rich in underground storage, it is difficult to replenish the aquifers in the absence of precipitation replenishment.

And don't underestimate well drilling, this is a technical job. For some areas with rich water resources, it may be possible to dig down about 15 meters to get water out. In this case, it can be achieved by individuals who work hard to dig.

However, in some areas where groundwater resources are not so abundant, it may be necessary to dig more than 100 meters down to produce water, which is more than a hundred times more difficult to drill.

Digging such a well is very dangerous. The long-term lack of water in the soil causes the soil to become loose. Digging deep into the well can easily cause landslides. There are also extremely arid areas where digging down 200 meters is impossible without the help of large machines.

However, these large-scale machine governments are also very small, and it is impossible to dig a well for all villages. Even if this well is dug, and a well is used by hundreds of households, how long do you think the water in the well will last?

It will take less than two years for the water level to drop, and the government will either seek help from the government to continue digging down, or simply abandon it. The previous efforts are completely in vain. Therefore, sometimes regional governments are not willing to spend time and effort digging water for extremely water-deficient villages, because the investment and return are simply not proportional.

Epilogue

In fact, to put it bluntly, there is only one reason why it is difficult for African people to enjoy sufficient water resources: poverty!

Take the machine for drilling a well, it will cost $33,000 to install the pumping equipment and dig down, and the follow-up maintenance of the machine will cost even more.

How many families do you think can afford the high cost of digging a well? So they can't extract water from the ground at all, and can only find areas with abundant surface water resources.