Programme presentation
WaSAf is an international project covering the monitoring and protection of continental surface aquatic systems used for the production of drinking water in three African countries, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal and Uganda. This project brings together a consortium of African and French research teams working in the humanities and environmental sciences. It is based on the close involvement of all players in the water sector, from natural resources to distributed water, and it receives funding from the French Global Environment Facility (FFEM) for a duration of four years (2015-2019).
The program's targets are as follows :
Implement a permanent monitoring of surface aquatic ecosystems, which will require the choice of tools and approaches adapted to local contexts, training of personnel in the use of these tools and the definition of decision trees to guide the actors of the surveillance in the actions to take in crisis situation (for example during proliferations of cyanobacteria)
Evaluate the current quality of the ecosystems targeted in this study by analyzing the existing data and acquiring additional data
Determine the possible evolution of these ecosystems (i) by analyzing the pressures exerted on these systems and their watersheds and possible changes in these pressures in the short and medium term and (ii) by experiments carried out in mesocosms in Situ to test the impact of these evolutions (eg in nutrient concentrations) on biodiversity and the functioning of biotic communities
Define ecosystem quality indicators based on this knowledge. These indicators will enable dashboards production containing the targets to be achieved for each of these indicators and to present their multiannual evolution
Prepare and/or support the institutions concerned in setting up observatories for aquatic environments, in particular in a database creation in order to centralize all the collected data
Identify the uses that are made of these ecosystems and their BV, the conflicts generated by the multiplicity of these uses, and their consequences on water quality
Conduct a comparative analysis of the water governance's organisation in the three countries targeted by this program in order to compare the strengths and weaknesses of each of these governance systems and their consequences on the management of ecosystems
Raise awareness and mobilize all those who, through their activities, put pressure on these ecosystems and create dialogue platforms bringing together users, managers, institutional representatives and scientists to prepare measures to protect ecosystems and/or restore them
Listen to RFI program "C'est pas du vent" about WaSAf