Summary of the Groundwater Recharge from the South West African Monsoon: A Transect from the Guinea Coast to the Hombori Mountains in Mali

Soumaïla Condé 1, Fodé Salifou Soumah2, Fatoumata SYLLA3, Luc Lambs 1, Issam Moussa 1, Guillaume Favreau 3,4, Manuela Grippa 3, & Eric Mougin 3

1 University Julius Nyerere of Kankan, B. P: 209, Guinea2 University of Kindia. B.P : Guinea3 Center for Environmental Studies and Research, University UGANC, 4 Functional ecology and environment laboratory, UMR 5245 CNRS-UPS-INPT, 31062 TOULOUSE cedex 9.5 Geosciences Environment Toulouse (GET), UMR 5563, University of Toulouse3, CNRS, IRD, 14 avenue Edouard Belin, OMP, 31400 Toulouse cedex 9, France
6 Grenoble Alpes University, IRD, CNRS, Grenoble INP, IGE, 38000 Grenoble, France
DOI – http://doi.org/10.37502/IJSMR.2024.71006

Abstract 

There is an increasing demand on water supplies in semi-arid regions. There is an urgent need to better understand the recharge process of groundwater in these areas, but there an under-representatity of long-term data in these regions ay a global scale. we present the seasonal variations of groundwater over a two-three-year period over a 1500 km transect from the Gulf of Guinea coast to inland Mount Hombori in Mali. The results show a strong seasonal and inter-annual variability, with important evaporation processes for surface and shallow groundwater with rapid infiltration processes. The continental /latitude effect is low along the first 500 km in Guinea, and decrease slowly with the reduction of rainfall and air moisture in direction of Sahel.

Keywords : Groundwater recharge, African monsoon, stable isotope, Sahel region

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