Para / To:

Water Resources and Natural Environment in Africa

* The World faces some challenges in the present century, such as population movements, climate change, scarcity of potable water and terrorism.
* Africa is a continent vulnerable to many of these challenges: water scarcity, population movements, poverty, economic dependency, lack of funding and political instability.
* "Useful Africa" means its capability for supplying raw materials, natural resources and energy to Western economies and, nowadays, to China.
* Which degrees of freedom has Africa, in the specific case-studies, to overcome those problems and commits itself to a development path?
* Is tradition compatible with modernity?
* This thematic area of research projects deals mainly with water resources, both under the management and political approaches.

Sub-Projects:

1. IMPACTS OF HYDRAULIC INFRA-STRUCTURES OF RIVER SENEGAL

* Severe droughts have affected this region in the last decades.
* To mitigate this trend hydraulic infra-structures have been constructed.
* These works change the welfare and the economic standards of life of the populations of both banks of the river Senegal.
* In the last decades, besides droughts, Senegal underwent the the impacts of natural catastrophes

This project aims to:

1. Analyse the consequences of the construction hydraulic infra-structures to the welfare of the populations of both sides of the river Senegal: some social and economic indicators should be computed.
2. To what extent the climate change will affects water supply.
3. Study the way how international share of River Senegal resources is processed.
4. Study how Civil Protection operates in order to mitigate natural catastrophes.

Timing: 2007-2009:

• Contacts, research, protocols, reports: 2007
• Visits to the site to deepen methodologies: 2008
• Visits to the site by researchers of other institutions: 2008
• Symposiums, workshops: 2009
• Produce and edit scientific documents, publication: 2009

2. NILE AND ZAMBEZI

* Nile and Zambezi belong to rather complex basins of Africa, shared by ten and eight riparians respectively
* International relations on this aspects are a very important issue, namely the way how the management of the common resources is addressed

* Nile crosses 10 countries.
* For example, Egypt faces desertification problems caused by the expansion of Sahara desert.
* Climate change, and its impacts on land and water resources, is a very sensitive problem to the region.

* Floods and earthquakes were the natural catastrophes which affected more people in Egypt, as well those who cause more economic losses and deaths.
* All the other 9 countries undergo natural catastrophes.

* Zambezi flows through eight countries.
For instance, in Angola droughts and floods affected much people and epidemics caused thousands of deaths.
Mozambique was also affected by droughts and floods: in 1981 the drought killed 100.000 persons.

This project aims to:

1. General goals
1. International relations in Africa.
2. Water management and development in Africa.
3. Future debates and research on natural resources in Africa.
2. Specific targets
1. The cases of Egypt (Nile) and Angola and Mozambique (Zambezi).
2. Identify the players on the hydropolitical international relations.
3. Establish a coherent scientific framework for studying water resources in Africa.
4. Contribute to the diffusion of new knowledge about water policies, by publications and international conferences.

Timing: 2007-2009.

1. Contacts, research, protocols, reports: 2007
2. Visits to the site to deepen methodologies: 2008
3. Visits to the site by researchers of other institutions: 2008
4. Symposiums, workshops: 2009
5. Produce and edit scientific documents, publication: 2009