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Watex: a NEW APPROACH to PREVENTING WATER BASED

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Watex: a NEW APPROACH to PREVENTING WATER BASED WATEX: A NEW APP R OACH TO P R EVENTING WATE R BASED CON F LICTS Introduction the identification of four major campsites Since October 2006, the NGOs led by Dr Alain Gachet is the CEO of Radar In March 2004, the UN Office for the Co- able to host some 200,000 new refugees. It UNICEF have achieved a success rate of 100 Technologies, France. As a radar expert he has ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNO- also led to the transfer of the first group of per cent in drilling 300 wells, whenever ap- advised a number of international bodies, such CHA) faced a severe challenge in providing 15,000 refugees to the newly identified Gaga plying the drilling handbook recommenda- as UNESCO, the UN, UNICEF and the OECD. assistance to 110,000 refugees from Sudan in Campsite, 65 km east of Abéché and to the tions on identified sites: He spent 20 years in the oil industry working Chad, which grew to 200,000 a few months increase of drilling success rate from 33 per as a Senior Explorationist and Economist later. cent before WATEX© to 89 per cent using the • at the camps of North Darfur near negociator in Russia, Kazakhstan, the Middle WATEX© methodology. El Fasher: Abu Shouk, Shagra, Mellit; East and Africa. Currently he is involved The United Nations High Commissioner • around the camps of South Darfur in remote sensing interpretation and the for Refugees (UNHCR) requested urgently the In December 2005, the US State Depart- near Nyala and Kas; and exploration of natural resources (groundwater, services of Radar Technologies France (RTF) ment invited me to apply the WATEX© proc- • around the camps of West Darfur: base metals, minerals and hydrocarbons) to use the WATEX© process in order to de- ess throughout Darfur in Sudan, over an area El Geneina, Riyad, Ardamata, Murnei, and for the monitoring surveillance and tect and map the water potential of Eastern of 135,000 km2, for 2.5 million internally Zalingei, Dereisa, Nyertete and Foto environment. Ouaddaï in Chad to support existing camps, displaced persons (IDPs), under the supervi- Burunga. identify new buried aquifers and support sion of Dr Saud Amer from the US Geologi- future refugee camps throughout the region cal Survey (USGS).3 How does WATEX© work? and avoid costly water trucking. This paper describes how the geospatial This project, accomplished in six months, WATEX© process was utilised by RTF to as- In just four months, RTF recorded amazing revealed that there is enough groundwater in sess the water potential of Eastern Chad and results applying the WATEX©-based method- Darfur for several million people — enough Darfur in Sudan without requiring time- ology1 to map the water potential of a region to sustain the peace process and the recon- consuming field surveys on ground cali- nearly 100,000 km2 in size. The humanitarian struction through agricultural development.4 brations for the remote sensing portion of dimension of the project demanded timely These results were forwarded at the request the project. Field surveys in Sudan were and efficient identification of sustainable aq- of the US Agency for International Develop- completed with ground penetrating radar uifers producing sufficient volumes of clean ment (USAID) to 40 NGOs in October 2006 equipment. water to support existing and future refugee in Khartoum. The Darfur Drilling Handbook,5 operations. based on WATEX© results, was distributed to As demonstrated in Chad with the case all the organisations attending the training study of Gaga Camp, the project enabled This RTF operation in 2004-2005 in east- seminar supported by USAID and UNESCO the UNHCR to, in a very short time, identify ern Chad led in the following months2 to (Chair in Water Resources, Sudan). new campsites in eastern Chad capable of 1 Dr Alain Gachet (July 2004). Chad—Phase I—Water Exploration in Eastern Ouaddaï—Ground Survey. Edited by Geneva. Radar Technologies France: UNHCR. 2 Dr Alain Gachet (2005). Tchad—Phase II—Synthèse des études hydro géologiques par télédetection radar du Ouaddaï Oriental. Edited by Geneva. Radar Technologies France: UNHCR, pp. 52-4, 83. 3 Dr Saud Amer PhD, ‘Water Resources and Remote Sensing Specialist’, International Water Resources Branch, USGS, 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, MS 420, Reston, VA, 20192, USA. 4 Dr Alain Gachet (2006). Water exploration in Darfur—Sudan Edited for USGS, UCSB and USAID, 30 May 2006 (89 pp.) 5 Dr Alain Gachet (2006). Darfur Drilling Handbook in Sudan Edited for USGS, UCSB and USAID, 30 May 2006 (123 pp.) [ 311 ] supporting tens of thousands of Sudanese gional geological phenomena. Basic analysis 2. The 2003 release of the Shuttle Radar Top- refugees. confirmed that the ‘Basement Complex’ of ographic Mission (SRTM) global terrain Darfur degrades groundwater storage poten- model, which provides slope and elevation In Sudan, the study has, in six months, tial, except within alluvial sediments, which data of unprecedented quality compared revealed vast stretches of land in central are unfortunately prone to rapid evapo- with other topographic information of the Darfur hosting enough groundwater reserves transpiration if not thick enough. Long- region. to sustain 33 million people year round with term programs to deliver water by tankers the Sphere Humanitarian Charter Standards to the refugee camps were not sustainable 3. The relaxing of the selective availability of 15 litres of water per day. because of long distances and unreliable of global positioning system (GPS) signals, tracks, lack of security and deficient bridge enabling civilian access to precise location The study has also identified 27 micro- infrastructure. information almost anywhere on the sur- dam sites suitable for aquifers sustainability face of the earth. and agriculture. These aquifers are renewable Recognising the severity of these chal- and easily accessible within a depth ranging lenges and the inadequacy of utilising tra- 4. The widely appreciated ‘digital revolu- from sub-surface to 50 m in unconsolidated ditional water exploration drilling methods tion’, which is now affordable even to sediments, which are easy to drill. and in order to meet the above challenges, small firms without access to high-pow- UNHCR and USAID decided to employ RTF’s ered computing, user-friendly analysis Challenge and opportunity WATEX© proprietary remote sensing tech- software and rich data archives accessi- The response agencies needed to main- nology. It guided water drilling operations ble via the internet. tain operations over a region of 300,000 and optimised the location of refugee camps km2. Not only was this region undeveloped in minimum time. The WATEX© process and largely inaccessible, it was also within a UNHCR, together with USAID, recognised zone of conflict that affected the security of It was developed by RTF to support water an opportunity to apply geospatial technolo- both refugees and humanitarian relief work- exploration in arid and semi-arid areas and gies in responding to the Darfur crisis, creat- ers. Facing a refugee population that quickly exploits the increasing data stream from ing an excellent example of the positive role approached 200,000 in Chad and 2.5 million civilian geospatial technologies to analyse the private sector can play in humanitarian IDPs in Sudan, the authorities needed to dis- large, heterogeneous climatic and geologic assistance and sustainable development. cover, develop and deliver massive water re- regions for water potential. serves able to sustain water distribution for The WATEX© process is a groundwater several years without depleting the natural Several recent trends have made the use exploration package used to locate renew- resources of local communities. of such technology possible: able groundwater reserves in arid and semi- arid environments. This process dramati- This challenge was further complicated 1. The availability of synthetic aperture radar cally improves the ability of humanitarian by the extreme urgency imposed by the es- (SAR) earth observation satellite imagery, and development organisations to identify calation of the refugee crisis, the limited which provides highly sensitive geological areas suitable for (temporary and perma- resources with which to assess hydrological and hydrological intelligence not discern- nent) settlement, agriculture and sustainable potential and the poor understanding of re- able through optical imagery. development. [ 312 ] The process is economical, rapid and Process well established,6 and known to be optimal highly effective for water and soils poten- The radar and optic data acquired by sat- in fine, dry sand with minimum volumetric tial mapping even over heterogeneous areas ellite are processed to achieve the project’s water content. However, even under ideal several hundred thousand square kilometres overarching goal — to detect large renewable conditions, the penetration of microwave in size. water reserves capable of supporting refugee signals is restricted to near-surface moisture settlements of 20,000 per camp, for up to detection, and therefore RTF focused upon 200,000 Sudanese refugees, in accordance the assessment of alluvial water potential with the UNHCR’s target provision rate of along existing wadis and nearby fractures 15 litres per day per person. This automati- and faults. (Deeper reservoirs can still be cally precluded water exploration of small detectable if capillary moisture flow or satu- or non-renewable reserves, and limited anal- rated zone reaches near-surface strata). ysis to areas of sizeable, renewable water potential. Large-scale groundwater reserve assessment General mapping After the region of interest had been suf- After interpreting Landsat 7 to determine ficiently mapped, RTF began an assessment Figure 1: Location diagrams lithology, weathering processes, vegetation of the following five key hydrologic param- cover, agriculture, settlements, roads/tracks, eters in order to establish an overall rank of the SRTM model was used to delineate wa- each ‘water potential anomaly’: tersheds, slopes and river profiles, and to es- timate energy level of transportation along 1. Dimension of the radar anomaly, which is wadi (i.e.
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