Making sure there is enough fresh water to support the 135 million people in one of the driest regions on earth was the subject of the first ever IAEA conference for PhD students held this month. Sixteen attendees from Africa’s Sahel region presented their work and results on how to improve the management of water resources using isotope hydrology techniques.
During the one-day meeting, the young researchers discussed solutions that can be used in the Sahel, where water demand is projected to increase fourfold in households, and ninefold in industry by 2050. Groundwater resources will continue to be used to meet this growing demand.
The PhD conference was part of a technical cooperation project to support thirteen African countries to better understand and manage shared water resources across the Sahel. With support from this project, students from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo are working towards their PhD or post-doctoral programmes and will become experts trained to identify the origin, flow patterns, quality, and renewal rate of groundwater using isotopic techniques (see The Science).
“Using isotopes to date and characterise the qualitative potential of water has taught me that groundwater is a strategic resource, and its protection is indispensable,” said Fricelle Song from Cameroon, who is studying at the university in her home country and also at a university in France. “This PhD programme is helping me acquire many skills including analytical laboratory techniques essential for the proper functioning of the laboratory at my university.”
During their studies at the partner universities abroad – in Canada, Ghana, France, Italy, Morocco and Tunisia – the students from the Sahel are gaining additional expertise as well as skills in the collecting samples in the field and analysing them in isotope laboratories.
“Investment in people is the most important investment we can make. This unique conference served as a platform to connect these students, connect their research, and connect their countries,” said Neil Jarvis, the IAEA Section Head responsible for the project.
