In the Senegal River Valley, drinking water resources are limited and surface (shallow) water tables are often brackish. This situation pushes people to turn to the water of the Senegal River, which flows along the border with Mali to the east and Mauritania to the north. In order to ensure the treatment of surface water elsewhere and to limit the extraction of water from deep water tables, the research and technological exchange group (GRET), an international development NGO under French law, recently produced a practical guidebook entitled “Surface water potabilization in West Africa – Technical solutions adapted from the experience of the Senegal River Valley “. Objective: to promote surface water treatment practices and technologies among the various stakeholders in the West African sub-region. The book was co-published by GRET and Quae, a scientific and technical publishing house resulting from French public research.
The contents of the practical guide
The 220-page book is aimed at public policy makers, technical staff and managers of organisations in the sub-region. It presents two series of fact sheets, one providing complementary technical notions for the major stages of surface water treatment, and the other presenting the major families of surface water treatment plants in West Africa and elsewhere (in Cambodia, Laos, Madagascar, Senegal, and Mauritania), designed by the GRET in partnership with several national consulting firms.
In addition, this working document describes and analyses the main potabilization technologies used in the Senegal River valley, in order to provide some keys to facilitate the process of selecting devices adapted to the context of West Africa and elsewhere. The GRET’s practical guide also provides recommendations for optimising their design and exploitation.
Inès Magoum