the african "blue gold"

Accessing groundwater is the easiest way to give smallholders in Africa access to safe water. In addition, during dry spells smallholders also have access to water for livestock or for supplemental irrigation. Therefore the use of groundwater could be a very good option to mitigate effects of climate change. Despite of general agreement across all development sectors on the benefits of using groundwater for smallholders, very little is happening on the ground. This is because we still lack information about where and how much groundwater is available. Now, a British team took up the challenge to review a continent wide groundwater literature and completed it with own data in order to fill this knowledge gap. And they found that there are huge water reserves hidden under the African continent...a glimpse of hope for a continent that desperately needs better access to save water...but let's hope that there will not be a rush on this "blue gold" by commercial farmers leaving the smallholders out of the game (see http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2011/11/is-it-really-about-land-grabbing.html).

Find here the very informative report on Aljazeera about this research:

as well as a more detailed article that completes this video: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/04/2012420204337712453.html 
and find the related scientific article here : http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/2/024009 
(if you cannot access it but would like to have a copy, please contact me)