BU team discovers hope for Darfur; ancient reservoir may mean water
Five newer stories that are related to last night's from the AP (updated [further] to add the one from AFP):
(See also a related "Huffington Post" item, a "Guardian" composite story, and [updated {originally} to note] a new VOA rewrite of the original AP story.)
From the "Boston Globe" (thanks to the "CFD")...
In the dry wasteland of Sudan's violence-torn Darfur region, geologist Farouk El-Baz says [that] he has discovered the imprint of an ancient underground lake as large as Massachusetts.
The find, if found to be legitimate upon drilling, could make possible the construction of 1,000 wells, a resource that would be vital to agriculture and humanitarian efforts.
Baz hopes [that] it could also bring peace to an area mired in bloodshed, warfare [that] some say was triggered by drought.
"It is dry desolation," Baz said in a telephone interview. "It's just a forbidding desert. Without water, it is a scary place."
By scouring satellite and radar images this past year, Baz said, he and a team of 20 other Boston University researchers identified possible streams running from a 5,000-year-old lake, which was once replenished by rain and is now obscured by the arid sands of northern Darfur.
Under the sand, the geologist says, a layer of sandstone hundreds of feet deep might hold water that could replenish the region for a century.
In June, he said, he showed Sudanese officials images of what appears to be an underground lake. Officials from neighboring Egypt, where Baz helped make a similar find in the 1980s, have pledged to donate workers and equipment to drill 20 wells in Sudan.
Baz plans to return to Sudan in November, when he will scout sites by helicopter.
He cited UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's editorial in the June 16 edition of the
"It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought," he wrote.
Darfur activist Eric Reeves, a literature professor at Smith College in Northampton, said [that] water sources would be critical to improve agriculture and rebuild society. But he said that adding resources in Darfur, where hundreds of thousands have died, would not relieve victims of "the politics of a genocidal regime."
"What you see is not simply a competition for the scarce resources of Darfur," Reeves said in a telephone interview. "If we want to look at the violence in Darfur, we don't look underground, we look at the political realities that exist today."
Baz, who worked on NASA's Apollo program, said [that] he first suspected [that] Sudan might hold an ancient lake while conducting similar research on Egypt. That project resulted in construction of 500 wells in an arid region of his home country.
From Reuters...
A newly found imprint of a vast, ancient underground lake in Sudan's Darfur could restore peace to the region, by providing a potential water source to an area ravaged by drought, a U.S. geologist says.
"What most people don't really know is that the war, the instability, in Darfur is all based on the lack of water," said Farouk el-Baz, director of Boston University's Center for Remote Sensing.
The potential water deposits were found with radar that allowed researchers to see inside the depths of the desert sands. The images, el-Baz said, uncovered a "megalake" of 19,110 square miles (30,750 sq km) -- three times the size of Lebanon.
International experts estimate [that] 200,000 people have died in four years of rape, killing and disease in Darfur, violence [that] the United States calls genocide. Sudan rejects that term, and puts the death toll at 9,000.
Widespread environmental problems are a root cause of Sudan's violence, the U.N. Development Programme said in a report last month, noting that deserts had spread southwards by an average of 62 miles (100 km) over the past four decades.
Many refugees from Darfur settled in regions that were once the domain of nomads, straining water resources and sowing conflict between farmers and nomads, said el-Baz.
"So now, if you find water for the farmers ... in addition to that for the nomads ... for agricultural production, to feed them, to give them grain, then you resolve the problem completely," he told Reuters in an interview.
His initiative, called 1,000 Wells for Darfur, has gained the support of the Egyptian government, which has pledged to start building an initial 20 wells.
El-Baz, who expects groundwater deposits below the surface can be drilled for water, hopes for backing from other regional governments, and has urged non-governmental organizations to get involved.
GROUND WATER
"As we began to look into this, we realized we were dealing with a vast low area, a depression. And then we began to look at the details of the depression and we actually found the terraces, meaning the edges of the lake, way up on the nearby mountains," he said.
"That's why we call it a megalake, because it is an incredibly large lake. It is the size of the state of Massachusetts, or Lake Erie."
Researchers said [that] the ancient lake would have contained about 607 cubic miles (2,530 cubic km) of water when full during past humid climate phases.
"One thing is certain, much of the lake's water would have seeped through the sandstone substrate to accumulate as groundwater," el-Baz said in a report.
El-Baz, who worked on NASA's Apollo program as a supervisor of lunar-science planning, conducted similar research in Egypt that led to the construction of 500 wells in an arid region of his native country.
That project helped irrigate up to 150,000 acres (60,700 hectares) of farmland where wheat and other crops are grown.
"As proven earlier in southwest Egypt, just northeast of Darfur, a similar former lake is underlain by vast amounts of groundwater," he said.
From the BBC...
A huge underground lake has been found in Sudan's Darfur region, scientists say, which they believe could help end the conflict in the arid region.
Some 1,000 wells will be drilled in the region, with the agreement of Sudan's government, the Boston University researchers say.
Analysts say [that] competition for resources between Darfur's Arab nomads and black African farmers is behind the conflict.
More than 200,000 Darfuris have died, and 2 [million] fled their homes since 2003.
"Much of the unrest in Darfur and the misery is due to water shortages," said geologist Farouk El-Baz, director of the Boston University Center for Remote Sensing, according to the AP news agency.
"Access to fresh water is essential for refugee survival, will help the peace process, and provides the necessary resources for the much needed economic development in Darfur," he said.
'Significant'
The team used radar data to find the ancient lake, which was 30,750 km2 - the size of Lake Erie in North America - the 10th-largest lake in the world.
A similar discovery was made in Sudan's neighbour Egypt, where wells have been used to irrigate 150,000 acres of farmland, the researchers say.
The discovery is "very significant", Hafiz Muhamad from the lobby group Justice Africa told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
"The root cause of the conflict is resources - drought and desertification in North Darfur."
He says [that] this led the Arab nomads to move into South Darfur, where they came into conflict with black African farmers.
He also said that it has long been known there was water in the area, but the government had not paid for it to be exploited.
French researcher Alain Gachet has also been using satellite images to look for new water resources in Darfur.
Last month, the UN Environmental Programme (Unep) said [that] there was little prospect of peace in Darfur unless the issues of environmental destruction were addressed.
It said [that] deserts had increased by an average of 100 km in the last 40 years, while almost 12% of forest cover had been lost in 15 years.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said [that] climate change was partly to blame for the conflict in Darfur in an editorial for US newspaper The Washington Post in June.
Deep below the troubled and arid land of Sudan’s Darfur region are the remnants of an ancient lake. Scientists say [that] while the lake may have disappeared thousands of years ago, the discovery offers hope of relieving water shortages there today.
The ancient lake was the size of Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes in the United States [and Canada]. Or to put it another way, it was as big as the US state of Massachusetts. The lake covered just about all of Northern Darfur State, one of three states making up the Darfur region. Scientists found it using satellite radar.
Dr. Farouk El-Baz is director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University. He says [that] Darfur’s environment was a very different place in ancient times.
“We have realized that the deserts of today were not like that in the past. They actually hosted much-kinder climates, and there were rivers and streams. There were lakes and therefore there was a great deal of vegetation, grasses and some trees. And if there was that much vegetation, there were animals, there were fish. And because of the animals and plants there was also man,” he says.
When was Darfur this lush?
“The last wet period was between 5,000 years ago and 11,000 years ago. We do not know exact dates, but this is close enough,” he says.
Dr. El-Baz says [that] since water existed in the region for tens of thousands of years, it’s likely [that] much of that water seeped down deep below the surface.
“Some of that water would still be there as ground water, which means that this is a signal to the people in Darfur that there may be plenty of water down there to resolve many of the real problems,” he says.
Darfur is the scene of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Four years of war between government forces and rebels have led to the killing of at least 200,000 people, the displacement of millions of others, and charges of genocide. The conflict is also creating instability in neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic.
Dr. El-Baz says [that] over the last 20 years there have been two prolonged periods of drought, adding to tensions in Darfur. Over time, as many as 1,000 wells may be dug offering pure drinking water to Arabs and black Africans alike.
“Most of the water that is produced today is from hand-dug wells that are only a few to tens of meters deep. And that water is really surface water. It’s likely to be polluted from the surface materials and anything else on the surface. And it might also contain a bit of salt and sand. But the water that we’re talking about would have had time to seep right through and be in porous layers down below that are clean, away from whatever is happening on the surface and totally unpolluted,” he says.
The Boston University scientist began his research of deserts decades ago, after working on the US Apollo program, which put men on the moon.
“One of the most-important jobs [that] I had was helping in the selection of landing sites. And the selection of landing sites for the astronauts to land upon on the moon depended on geological interpretation of pictures, photographs taken before the astronauts went. So we began to learn how does [one] interpret the terrain from pictures, especially over a place that you’ve never been to,” he says.
Scientists are now determining the best sites to drill the first wells.
From AFP...
The recent discovery of a huge underground lake in Sudan could spell an end to four years of conflict in the drought-stricken region of Darfur, a US geologist said [on] Wednesday.
More than 200,000 people have been killed and some two million [have been] displaced in the conflict, sparked in part by competing claims to scarce natural resources in the western region, according to humanitarian organizations.
"Access to fresh water is essential for refugee survival, it will help the peace process and provide the necessary resources for the much-needed economic development in Darfur," said Farouk El-Baz from Boston University.
The discovery was reported in last month's "International Journal of Remote Sensing" and the Sudanese government has since launched its "1,000 Wells For Darfur" campaign to raise sufficient funds to tap the precious resource.
Egypt has already committed to sinking the first 20 wells free of charge, while the United Nations has sought help in selecting the best sites to sink the wells, Baz told AFP.
The United Nations needs water supplies for its planned 20,000-strong joint UN-African Union force, due to deploy in Sudan possibly next year.
The lake was spotted by satellite and lies more than 550 meters (1,800 feet) below sea level. With a surface area of some 30,750 square kilometers (11,800 square miles), it is slightly larger than Belgium or Lake Erie.
The lake may have contained up to 2,530 cubic kilometers (606 cubic miles) of water in the past and was discovered using images from three satellites, one belonging to NASA, another to Canada and a third from the Pentagon.
Scientists were spurred into looking for the lake after the discovery a decade earlier of an underground lake in Egypt north of Darfur that is now used to irrigate some 60,000 hectares (150,000 acres) of land, Baz said.
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